meinen

From Old High German meinen, from Proto-Germanic *mainijaną (“to mean, think; lament”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪ̯nən/, [ˈmaɪ̯nən], [ˈmaɪ̯nn̩]

meinen (third-person singular simple present meint, past tense meinte, past participle gemeint, auxiliary haben)

1. to think; to believe; to suppose (have an opinion or impression)

   Ich meine, das war letztes oder vorletztes Jahr.

   I think it was last year or the year before.

2. to say; to utter; not used with nouns; not used in the imperative and rarely in the infinitive

   Entschuldige, was meintest du gerade?

   Sorry, what did you just say?

3. to mean; to be convinced or sincere about something

   Das sagt er nicht nur, das meint er auch.

   He doesn’t just say it, he means it.

4. to mean; to have in mind; to convey

   Was meintest du damit?

   What did you mean by that?

   Meinst du das rote oder das gelbe Haus?

   Do you mean the red or the yellow house?

5. (now rare) to mean; to signify

   Was meint dieses Wort?

   What does this word mean?

• (think): denken; glauben
• (say): sagen
• (signify): bedeuten; heißen

• Meinung
• vermeinen

Inflected form of mein.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmaɪ̯nən/, [ˈmaɪ̯nən], [ˈmaɪ̯nn̩] (standard)
• IPA^(key): /maɪ̯n/ (common, colloquial)
• Homophone: mein (nonstandard)

meinen

1. (possessive) accusative singular masculine of mein
2. (possessive) dative plural of mein

• In colloquial spoken German, the masculine nominative forms mein, dein, kein, etc may not be distinguished from the accusative forms meinen, deinen, keinen etc in adjectival use. The distinction is maintained in substantival use, i.e. without a following noun.

• meinen in Duden online

meinen

1. to mean, think, name

1. Köbler, Gerhard, Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, (6. Auflage) 2014