German

Noun

Heimat f ‎(genitive Heimat, plural Heimaten)

1. home, homeland
   • 1918, Elisabeth von Heyking, Die Orgelpfeifen, in: Zwei Erzählungen, Phillipp Reclam jun. Verlag, page 13–14:

     Ländlich bodenständige Kinder waren die drei und wurzelten mit allen Herzensfasern in dem Stückchen Erde, das sie Heimat nannten.

     The three of them were rural down-home children and were rooted with all fibres of the heart in the little piece of soil that they called home.

Usage notes

Heimat is often considered a particularly German concept, because it does not have perfect semantic equivalents in many European languages (including English). Heimat refers to a place towards which one has a strong feeling of belonging, and (usually) a deep-rooted fondness. Most commonly this is one's native region, but it may also be that where one has lived for long, where one's family are, or where one feels at home for whatever reason.

Heimat may be the whole of one's native country, but more often it is a relatively narrow region (typically with its particular traditions, landscape, dialect, and so on). Even if it refers to a country, it is always defined exclusively by a person's emotional ties with it, and is therefore quite different from the French patrie.

Derived terms

Related terms

• heim
• Heim