schleifen.
to whet, grind (smooth and/or sharpen a surface by abrasion)
Meaning & usage
to whet, grind (smooth and/or sharpen a surface by abrasion)
Sie hatten den Diamanten tausendmal geschliffen, bis dieser glänzte und funkelte.
Der Rand muss mit Schmirgelpapier geschliffen werden.
to drill, train, especially in a vexatious manner
Where this word comes from
From Middle High German slīfen (strong verb), from Old High German slīfan, from Proto-West Germanic *slīpan, from Proto-Germanic *slīpaną (“to slide, to whet”). The strong verb was restricted in Modern German to the sense “whet”, the sense “slide” was redistributed to the weak verb (etymology 2), although the split is not entirely clear-cut in practice (see usage notes below). This development was reinforced by the graphic (and later phonetic) merger, but is not conditional on it (cf. the same in Dutch slijpen and dialectal German verb pairs).
to drag, to move across a surface, to slide heavily
Die Schleppe ihres Brautkleids schleifte über den Boden.
to drag, pull (something) across a surface without lifting it (or lifting it for brief moments only)
Sie schleiften die Truhe in die Zimmerecke.
to drag (take someone to a place by force or persuasion)
to raze, to tear down (e.g., a building, a wall, etc.)
Gemäß dem Versailler Vertrag musste der Kölner Festungsring geschleift werden.
Where this word comes from
From Middle High German sleifen (weak verb), from Old High German *sleifen, from Proto-West Germanic *slaipijan (“to cause to slide, to drag”), originally causative of etymology 1 above. Doublet of schleppen, from Middle Low German slêpen. Also cognate with Dutch slepen.
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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.