gedanklich

gedanklich

German

Etymology

    Gedanke +‎ -lich

    Pronunciation

    • IPA(key): /ɡəˈdaŋklɪç/
    • Hyphenation: ge‧dank‧lich
    • Audio (Germany (Berlin)):(file)

    Adjective

    gedanklich (strong nominative masculine singular gedanklicher, not comparable)

    1. mental (concerning or involving one's thoughts)
      Near-synonym: mental
      Gedanklich war ich ganz woanders.
      My thoughts were somewhere else entirely.
      (literally, “Mentally, I was [] ”)
      Das war ein gedanklicher Irrweg.
      The thinking was along the wrong track there.
      (literally, “That was a mental wrong track.”)

    Usage notes

    • As exemplarized by the usage examples, it often doesn't idiomatically translate to an adjective, but a noun phrase relating to instances of thoughts, reasoning and imagination and metaphorical descriptions thereof. The focus is not on mentality or other aspects of personality — mental is often more appropriate for that context.

    Declension

    Further reading