German words ending in -eurin

A noun ending in -eurin is die, because the -in on the end is what decides.

die Oma the character this deck pins every die-word on

German borrowed a family of job titles from French that end in -eur, and they came in masculine: der Friseur, der Ingenieur, der Redakteur, der Regisseur. To name a woman in the same job, German adds -in, which shifts the noun to feminine: die Friseurin, die Ingenieurin, die Redakteurin, die Regisseurin.

So this is really the -in rule with a longer run-up. The feminine agent suffix -in does not care what it is attached to, and it has no exceptions. It is listed here as its own ending only so that a word like Friseurin is read as an agent noun rather than as something that merely ends in -in.

Pronunciation is where these trip people up. The -eur keeps its French vowel, close to the German ö, so Friseurin is roughly fri-ZÖ-rin, with the s sounding like a z and the stress staying on that middle syllable. Written German has caught up with the borrowing more than spoken German has.

Worked examples

  • die Friseurin hairdresser
  • die Ingenieurin engineer not in the deck, unchecked
  • die Redakteurin editor not in the deck, unchecked

Measured on this deck

100% of the 1 nouns ending in -eurin are die

Job titles in this shape are thin on a B1 syllabus, and the deck bears that out with 1. The 100 percent beside it tells you nothing the -in rule above has not already told you.

  • die Friseurin die Friseurinnen

What a card looks like

Friseurin

Try it

The drill below is the mixed deck rather than a set of job titles, so it will not rehearse this pair for you. Take the pair itself as the exercise. Say the masculine form, add -in, and the article moves with it.

Wohnung