Gesichtserker

German

Etymology

Gesicht (“face”) +‎ -s- +‎ Erker (“oriel”). Possibly coined as a linguistic purism to replace Nase (incorrectly perceived to be a loanword from Latin nāsus or one of its Romance descendants) or, more likely, as a satire pointing out the absurdities of linguistic purism. Often misattributed to Philipp von Zesen.[1]

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ɡəˈzɪçt͡sˌʔɛʁkɐ/
Hyphenation: Ge‧sichts‧er‧ker
Audio (file)

Noun

Gesichtserker m (strong, genitive Gesichtserkers, plural Gesichtserker)

(humorous, rare) nose
- 1916, Karl Grube, chapter VIII, in Bei deutschen Brüdern im Urwald Brasiliens, Leipzig: Dieterich, page 43:
  So schläft es sich im Urwald ideal, namentlich wenn man den Poncho über das geehrte Riechorgan zieht, damit die infamen Moskitos auf besagten Gesichtserker keine Turnübungen veranstalten können.
  So in the primeval forest sleep is great, namely when one draws the poncho over the esteemed smelling organ, in order for the mosquitos, the infamous, not being able to do their workouts on the conk.

Declension

Declension of Gesichtserker [masculine, strong]

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	ein	der	Gesichtserker	die	Gesichtserker
genitive	eines	des	Gesichtserkers	der	Gesichtserker
dative	einem	dem	Gesichtserker	den	Gesichtserkern
accusative	einen	den	Gesichtserker	die	Gesichtserker

References

Joseph Salmons (2012) A History of German, Oxford: OUP, →ISBN, page 282: “ […] it is claimed in many sources (e.g. Schwarz 1967: 99) that Zesen mistook Nase for a loanword and proposed replacing it with Gesichtserker […] However, it appears that Zesen never used the word in his writings and it first appears in print much later […] ”