"KZ" meaning in German

See KZ in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˌkaːˈtsɛt/, /kaˈtsɛt/ Audio: De-KZ.ogg Forms: KZs [genitive], KZ [genitive], KZs [plural], KZ [plural]
Etymology: The expected initialism KL was used officially at least in the earlier years of the National Socialist concentration camps. While it is not entirely clear how the informal variant KZ originated, it is usually thought that it came to be preferred and eventually standardised due to its sounding harsher. A possible origin is from the fact that the common German pronunciation of Konzentrationslager contains the cluster [ts], predominantly represented in German by the letter Z, three times: [ˌkɔn.tsɛn.tʁaˈtsjoːntsˌlaːɡɐ]. Another theory derives it from Zuchthaus (“prison with aggravated conditions of detention”), which at least officially, however, was never used for the camps. Head templates: {{de-noun|n,(s),(s)}} KZ n (strong, genitive KZs or KZ, plural KZs or KZ)
  1. abbreviation of Konzentrationslager (“concentration camp”) Tags: abbreviation, alt-of, neuter, strong Alternative form of: Konzentrationslager (extra: concentration camp)
    Sense id: en-KZ-de-noun-DgbjPFUv Categories (other): German entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of German entries with incorrect language header: 52 48
  2. (uncommon) abbreviation of Krankenzimmer Tags: abbreviation, alt-of, neuter, strong, uncommon Alternative form of: Krankenzimmer
    Sense id: en-KZ-de-noun-qRfDPcVo Categories (other): German entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of German entries with incorrect language header: 52 48
{
  "descendants": [
    {
      "lang": "Yiddish",
      "lang_code": "yi",
      "raw_tags": [
        "borrowed"
      ],
      "roman": "katset",
      "word": "קאַצעט"
    },
    {
      "lang": "Polish",
      "lang_code": "pl",
      "raw_tags": [
        "borrowed"
      ],
      "word": "kacet"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "The expected initialism KL was used officially at least in the earlier years of the National Socialist concentration camps. While it is not entirely clear how the informal variant KZ originated, it is usually thought that it came to be preferred and eventually standardised due to its sounding harsher. A possible origin is from the fact that the common German pronunciation of Konzentrationslager contains the cluster [ts], predominantly represented in German by the letter Z, three times: [ˌkɔn.tsɛn.tʁaˈtsjoːntsˌlaːɡɐ]. Another theory derives it from Zuchthaus (“prison with aggravated conditions of detention”), which at least officially, however, was never used for the camps.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "KZs",
      "tags": [
        "genitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "KZ",
      "tags": [
        "genitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "KZs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "KZ",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "n,(s),(s)"
      },
      "expansion": "KZ n (strong, genitive KZs or KZ, plural KZs or KZ)",
      "name": "de-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "German",
  "lang_code": "de",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "extra": "concentration camp",
          "word": "Konzentrationslager"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "52 48",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "German entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "abbreviation of Konzentrationslager (“concentration camp”)"
      ],
      "id": "en-KZ-de-noun-DgbjPFUv",
      "links": [
        [
          "Konzentrationslager",
          "Konzentrationslager#German"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "neuter",
        "strong"
      ]
    },
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "Krankenzimmer"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "52 48",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "German entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "abbreviation of Krankenzimmer"
      ],
      "id": "en-KZ-de-noun-qRfDPcVo",
      "links": [
        [
          "Krankenzimmer",
          "Krankenzimmer#German"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(uncommon) abbreviation of Krankenzimmer"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "neuter",
        "strong",
        "uncommon"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌkaːˈtsɛt/"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/kaˈtsɛt/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "De-KZ.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3b/De-KZ.ogg/De-KZ.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/De-KZ.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "KZ"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "German entries with incorrect language header",
    "German lemmas",
    "German neuter nouns",
    "German nouns",
    "Pages with 2 entries",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "descendants": [
    {
      "lang": "Yiddish",
      "lang_code": "yi",
      "raw_tags": [
        "borrowed"
      ],
      "roman": "katset",
      "word": "קאַצעט"
    },
    {
      "lang": "Polish",
      "lang_code": "pl",
      "raw_tags": [
        "borrowed"
      ],
      "word": "kacet"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "The expected initialism KL was used officially at least in the earlier years of the National Socialist concentration camps. While it is not entirely clear how the informal variant KZ originated, it is usually thought that it came to be preferred and eventually standardised due to its sounding harsher. A possible origin is from the fact that the common German pronunciation of Konzentrationslager contains the cluster [ts], predominantly represented in German by the letter Z, three times: [ˌkɔn.tsɛn.tʁaˈtsjoːntsˌlaːɡɐ]. Another theory derives it from Zuchthaus (“prison with aggravated conditions of detention”), which at least officially, however, was never used for the camps.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "KZs",
      "tags": [
        "genitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "KZ",
      "tags": [
        "genitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "KZs",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "KZ",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "n,(s),(s)"
      },
      "expansion": "KZ n (strong, genitive KZs or KZ, plural KZs or KZ)",
      "name": "de-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "German",
  "lang_code": "de",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "extra": "concentration camp",
          "word": "Konzentrationslager"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "German abbreviations"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "abbreviation of Konzentrationslager (“concentration camp”)"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Konzentrationslager",
          "Konzentrationslager#German"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "neuter",
        "strong"
      ]
    },
    {
      "alt_of": [
        {
          "word": "Krankenzimmer"
        }
      ],
      "categories": [
        "German abbreviations",
        "German terms with uncommon senses"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "abbreviation of Krankenzimmer"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Krankenzimmer",
          "Krankenzimmer#German"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(uncommon) abbreviation of Krankenzimmer"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "abbreviation",
        "alt-of",
        "neuter",
        "strong",
        "uncommon"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˌkaːˈtsɛt/"
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/kaˈtsɛt/"
    },
    {
      "audio": "De-KZ.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/3/3b/De-KZ.ogg/De-KZ.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/De-KZ.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "KZ"
}

Download raw JSONL data for KZ meaning in German (2.3kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable German dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (96027d6 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.