Beamter

German

Etymology

14th century substantivization of haplologized (shortened) participial adjective beampt (also 14th century), which became Beamter in Neuhochdeutsch. From Old High German and Middle High German precursors of Amt (“office”).

Nowadays often superficially analyzed as a shortened form of the rare Beamteter, which sometimes incites pseudoeducated claims that a feminine form *Beamte could be created (from the equally rare feminine form Beamtete), but this sounds silly to German speakers due to the well established feminine form Beamtin, which naturally evolved from Beamter + -in since the word beam(p)t no longer existed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bəˈʔamtɐ/ (Germany, most areas)
• IPA^(key): /bɛˈamtər/ (Switzerland, some speakers of southern Germany and Austria)

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: Be‧am‧ter

Noun

Beamter m (adjectival, definite nominative der Beamte, genitive (des) Beamten, plural Beamte, definite plural die Beamten, feminine Beamtin)

1. government employee, (government) official, civil servant, public servant, (police) officer (male or of unspecified gender)

   Synonyms: Amtsträger, Staatsbediensteter, Staatsdiener

   Antonyms: Angestellter, Arbeiter, Unternehmer

Usage notes

• Beamter is declined only as a masculine nominalized adjective. There has never been a feminine equivalent *Beamte. However, due to superficial analysis of the masculine word and disregard for and even denigration of well established usage, there are fairly frequent calls for use of this erroneous feminine form, but it is only very rarely seen in writing. The feminine form has always been Beamtin, which is declined like a standard feminine noun. The extremely rare feminine *Beamte is labeled incorrect in Duden and not even mentioned in other reference sources.

• The weak form der Beamte is very common and listed as the lemma in DWDS.de.

Declension

Declension of Beamter [masculine, adjectival]

	singular		plural
masculine gender	strong declension
nominative	Beamter		Beamte
genitive	Beamten		Beamter
dative	Beamtem		Beamten
accusative	Beamten		Beamte
	weak declension
nominative	der	Beamte	die	Beamten
genitive	des	Beamten	der	Beamten
dative	dem	Beamten	den	Beamten
accusative	den	Beamten	die	Beamten
	mixed declension
nominative	ein	Beamter	(keine)	Beamten
genitive	eines	Beamten	(keiner)	Beamten
dative	einem	Beamten	(keinen)	Beamten
accusative	einen	Beamten	(keine)	Beamten

Hyponyms

• Abfertigungsbeamter
• Bahnbeamter
• Bankbeamter
• Bundesbeamter
• Bundeskanzler
• EU-Beamter
• Gerichtsbeamter
• Grenzbeamter
• Justizbeamter
• Justizwachebeamter
• Kolonialbeamter
• Kommunalbeamter
• Kostenbeamter
• Kriminalbeamter
• Kripobeamter
• Landesbeamter
• Lehrer
• Minister
• Niederbeamter
• Oberbeamter
• Polizeibeamter
• Polizist
• Post-Beschäftigter
• Postbeamter
• Professor
• Schalterbeamter
• Schalterbeamter
• Sparkassenbeamter
• Staatsanwalt
• Staatsbeamter
• Standesbeamter
• Steuerbeamter
• Studienrat
• Supernumerar
• Unterbeamter
• US-Beamter
• Verwaltungsbeamter
• Vollstreckungsbeamter
• Zollbeamter

 

Further reading

• “Beamter” in Duden online
• “Beamte” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache