Kindergarten

German

Alternative forms

  • Kiga, KiGa (short for: Kindergarten)

Etymology

Kind (“child”) +‎ -er- +‎ Garten (“garden”). Coined in 1840 by Friedrich Fröbel in the metaphorical sense of “place where children can grow in a natural way”, not in the literal sense of “garden”.[1]

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈkɪndɐˌɡaːɐ̯tn̩/
  • Audio(file)

Noun

Kindergarten m (genitive Kindergartens, plural Kindergärten)

  1. nursery school, kindergarten

Derived terms

References

  1. ↑ Horace Mann; Elizabeth P. Peabody (1863) Moral Culture of Infancy and Kindergarten Guide‎, page 10:
    Kindergarten means a garden of children, and Froebel, the inventor of it, or rather, as he would prefer to express it, the discoverer of the method of Nature, meant to symbolize by the name the spirit and plan of treatment. How does the gardener treat his plants? He studies their individual natures, and puts them into such circumstances of soil and atmosphere as enable them to grow, flower, and bring forth fruit, also to renew their manifestation year after year.

Further reading

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