kriegen

From Middle High German kriegen (“to war, to conquer property or land”). Verbalisation of Krieg (“war”). Cognate to Dutch krijgen.

• (Standard, Germany) IPA^(key): /ˈkriːɡən/, [ˈkʰʁ̞̊iːɡ(ə)n], [ˈkʰʁ̞̊iːŋ̩]
• (southern Germany) IPA^(key): /ˈkriəɡən/, [ˈkriɐɡ̊ɐn], [kʁ̞̊iɛɡɐ(n)]

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• Hyphenation: krie‧gen
• Rhymes: -iːɡən

kriegen (third-person singular simple present kriegt, past tense kriegte, past participle gekriegt, auxiliary haben)

1. (chiefly colloquial) to get
2. (chiefly colloquial) to catch, to come down with
3. (dated, rare) to war

• Kriegen is relatively infrequent in the formal standard language, which prefers bekommen or erhalten instead. However, kriegen is very frequent in colloquial German, where the verb often retains the vowel shortening that is occurring in local dialects in the second and third person singular of verbs. Thus, (du) kriegst is often pronounced /krɪ(ç)s(t)/, (er) kriegt may be /krɪkt/, /krɪç(t)/. These pronunciations are not used for the rare sense “to war”.

• bekommen
• erhalten

From Middle Low German krîgen. Verbalisation of krîg (“war”). Compare German kriegen, Dutch krijgen.

kriegen (past singular kreeg, past participle kregen, auxiliary verb hebben)

1. to get
2. to catch
3. to come down with