saugen

Etymology

From Middle High German sūgen, from Old High German sūgan (“to suck”), from Proto-West Germanic *sūgan, from Proto-Germanic *sūganą, from Proto-Indo-European *sewk-. The sense “be inferior or objectionable”, which was never common and always somewhat jocular or tongue-in-cheek, is a semantic loan from English suck in the same sense.

Compare Low German sugen, Dutch zuigen, Danish suge.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈzaʊ̯ɡn̩], [-ɡŋ̩]
• IPA^(key): /ˈsɑɔ̯ɡn̩/, [-ɡŋ̩] (Austria)

• Audio:

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• Audio:

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• Hyphenation: sau‧gen

Verb

saugen (weak or class 2 strong, third-person singular present saugt, past tense saugte or sog, past participle gesaugt or gesogen, past subjunctive söge, auxiliary haben)

1. (intransitive) to suck (to create underpressure with a tube-like object such as one's mouth)

   an etwas saugen ― to suck on something

2. (transitive) to suck (something)
4. (colloquial) Ellipsis of staubsaugen (“to vacuum”).
5. (colloquial, transitive, Internet) to download something, especially illegally

   Synonym: herunterladen

   • 2005, Inga Köhler, Untersuchung der aktuellen Lage des deutschen Filmmarktes unter Berücksichtigung der amerikanischen und europäischen Filmwirtschaft, Diplomica, →ISBN, page 100:

     Wir verzeichnen einen starken Rückgang bei den Besucherschichten zwischen 14 und 25 Jahren; diese kommen schon mit ihren Handygebühren wegen des SMS-Umgangs nicht klar, und da das Geld fehlt, werden die Filme im Internet gesaugt.

     We are seeing a sharp decline in visitors between the ages of 14 and 25; they already can't cope with their cell phone charges because of text messaging, and since they have no money, the movies are (illegally) downloaded on the Internet.

6. (dated slang, intransitive) to suck (to be inferior or objectionable)

   Das saugt total. ― This totally sucks.

Further reading

• “saugen” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• “saugen” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• “saugen” in Duden online
• “saugen” in OpenThesaurus.de