Meaning & use
Lebkuchen
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Meaning
nouncountable or uncountable
A soft or firm spiced German cookie, often baked for Christmas and sometimes decorated with icing.
Grammar: Countable when you mean individual cookies (a Lebkuchen, two Lebkuchen); uncountable when you mean the type of cookie.
Patterns
- a piece of Lebkuchen
- bake Lebkuchen
- Lebkuchen with icing
She brought a box of Lebkuchen back from the Christmas market in Nuremberg.
The Lebkuchen were soft, dark, and heavy with honey and spice.
We ate Lebkuchen with coffee while decorating the tree.
Word forms
| plural | Lebkuchen |
|---|
Common combinations
- Christmas Lebkuchen
- The bakery sells Christmas Lebkuchen from November onward.
- homemade Lebkuchen
- Her homemade Lebkuchen uses honey instead of sugar.
- a box of Lebkuchen
- He gave us a box of Lebkuchen as a thank-you gift.
- Lebkuchen with icing
- The children prefer Lebkuchen with icing on top.
- spiced Lebkuchen
- These spiced Lebkuchen taste of cinnamon and cloves.
Synonyms and how they differ
- gingerbread
- Gingerbread is the general English word for similar spiced baked goods, while Lebkuchen refers specifically to the German kind.
- cookie
- Cookie is the broad everyday term; Lebkuchen names one particular spiced variety.
Commonly confused: Lebkuchen or gingerbread?
Lebkuchen vs gingerbread
Gingerbread can be soft or crisp and is not necessarily German; Lebkuchen is the German Christmas specialty, often glazed or iced.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'Lebkuchen' correctly?
Choose one answer.
The plural of Lebkuchen is the same as the singular, so 'two Lebkuchen' is correct. Adding -s or -es is not standard, and option 3 changes the phrase in a way that is not about the plural.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “Lebkuchen”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.