German words ending in -um

A noun ending in the Latin -um is das. The deck holds no counter-example.

das Baby the character this deck pins every das-word on

This ending is not German, it is Latin, and it came over intact. Latin nouns in -um are neuter, German kept them neuter, and the result is das Museum, das Zentrum, das Praktikum, das Studium, das Visum. Nothing about the word had to be decided by German, so nothing about it can go the other way.

The plural is the tell that you are looking at the real thing. These words drop the -um and take a Latin or a German ending instead: Museum becomes Museen, Praktikum becomes Praktika, Studium becomes Studien. If the word does that, it is the suffix, and it is das.

What catches people here is not an exception at all. It is a small set of ordinary German words that end in the same two letters by accident, and they are listed below so you never file them as counter-examples.

Worked examples

das Museum museum
das Zentrum centre
das Praktikum internship
das Studium studies
das Visum visa

Measured on this deck

100% of the 10 nouns ending in -um are das

10 nouns in this deck carry the Latin -um and all of them are das: the 100 percent below. Latin settled the gender before German ever took the word.

das Datum die Daten
das Praktikum die Praktika
das Studium die Studien
das Einkaufszentrum die Einkaufszentren
das Museum die Museen
das Stipendium die Stipendien
das Zentrum die Zentren
das Forum
das Publikum die Publika
das Visum

Looks like it, is not

These end in the same two letters and are not this suffix. They are old Germanic stems where the m belongs to the word itself, they are masculine, and none of them is an exception to anything on this page.

der Baum die Bäume
der Raum die Räume
der Traum die Träume

What a card looks like

Museum

Try it

One -um word sits in the mixed deck below, das Datum, and the Latin ending settles it exactly as it settles the longer words above.

Wohnung