As you might have encountered before in your German-learning journey, das Zwielicht (pronounced like this) is one of those German words that has an original, more literal meaning, but is often used as a slang term to describe something different.
This makes Zweilicht a great word to have up your sleeve.Â
What does it mean?
In English, the real meaning behind Zwielicht is “twilight”, “half-light” or “dusky”. But if you’ve heard the word in casual conversation before, it probably wasn’t to describe a certain time of day, but rather something or someone you might consider a bit weird.
In these circumstances, a good translation would be “shady”, “dodgy”, “suspicious” or “dubious”. With this in mind, you're likely to read or hear this word used as an adjective with the suffix -ig at the end - zwielichtig - to describe a slightly shady person or situation.
As always with adjectives, you can adapt zwielichtig depending on what you mean: zwielichtiger makes it a comparative (shadier), while zwielichtigsten makes it a superlative (the shadiest).
But they’re all very helpful when you’re looking to describe this suspicious person or action.
READ ALSO: German word of the day - Schadenfreude
Use it like this:
Er ist ein zwielichtiger Kerl.
He is a shady dude.
Sie behauptet, dass dieses Geld in zwielichtigen Projekten flieĂźt.
She claims that this money is being channelled into dubious projects.
Ins Zwielicht geraten.
Literally “into the twilight”, but really: being dragged into a dubious affair.
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