German

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Etymology

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From Old High German henken, an Upper German variant of hengen. The verb originally meant “to hang” in general, but was restricted to the context of execution in the modern written language. See hängen for more.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈhɛŋkən/, [ˈhɛŋkən], [ˈhɛŋkŋ̍]
  • Audio:(file)

Verb

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henken (weak, third-person singular present henkt, past tense henkte, past participle gehenkt, auxiliary haben)

  1. (transitive, dated or archaic) to hang; to execute by hanging
    Synonym: hängen

Usage notes

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  • Inflected forms in which the stem henk- is followed by a consonant are—according to any not stilted pronunciation—homophonous with the corresponding forms of hängen, and can therefore be considered spelling variants of the latter. Some writers may use the spelling henk- instead of häng- because it is suggestive of Henker (hangman).
  • Those forms in which the stem henk- is not followed by a consonant (henk, henke, henken, henkend) are audibly distinct from hängen. These are rarely used anymore.

Conjugation

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Derived terms

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Further reading

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  • henken” in Duden online
  • henken” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

Japanese

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Romanization

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henken

  1. Rōmaji transcription of へんけん