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GERMAN · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

schiffen.

to sail, to go by ship

8 characters2 syllables approx.Deutsch language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈʃɪfn̩/
  1. to sail, to go by ship

    dated · intransitive · weak
  2. to transport by ship

    transitive · weak
    Die Orangen aus Südafrika werden um die halbe Welt geschifft.
Where this word comes from

Likely from Schiff + -en.

verb/ˈʃɪfn̩/
  1. to urinate

    colloquial · weak
  2. to rain heavily

    broadly · colloquial · impersonal · weak
Where this word comes from

From Schiff which in Studentensprache used to be synonymous with German Nachtgeschirr (“chamber pot”). The term originated in this jargon in central Germany in the 1830s and had already become mainstream and widespread by 1900. An alternative theory proposes that in olden times, noble women didn't wear any undergarments, and when they needed to urinate, servants gave them a container in the form of a little ship (Schiff being the German word for ship).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.