gesellschaft

American  

[guh-zel-shahft] / gəˈzɛlˌʃɑft /

noun

(often initial capital letter)

gesellschaften plural

1. an association of individuals for common goals, as for entertainment, intellectual, or cultural purposes or for business reasons.

2. Sociology. a society or group characterized chiefly by formal organization, impersonal relations, the absence of generally held or binding norms, and a detachment from traditional and sentimental concerns, and often tending to be rationalistic and secular in outlook.

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gesellschaft British  

/ ɡəˈzɛlʃaft /

noun

1. (often capital) a social group held together by practical concerns, formal and impersonal relationships, etc Compare gemeinschaft

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• gesellschaften
  plural

Etymology

Origin of gesellschaft

1935–40; < German, equivalent to Geselle companion + -schaft -ship

Compare meaning

How does gesellschaft compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• gemeinschaft vs. gesellschaft

Example Sentences

Other plans include a new synagogue — funded by the Kurt Weill Gesellschaft, the society that organizes the festival — on the site of the destroyed one where his father worked.

From New York Times • Mar. 9, 2017

Detekt, which was developed by security researcher Claudio Guarnieri, is being released in a partnership with advocacy groups Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Privacy International.

From BusinessWeek • Nov. 21, 2014

The doorman is a touch of Gemeinschaft in an ever more Gesellschaft world.

From New York Times • Apr. 26, 2010

There are some 50 branches of the Disconto Gesellschaft, a personnel of 7,000.

From Time Magazine Archive

It is the same as the German derivative, schaft, in Gesellschaft, &c.

From Lectures on The Science of Language by Müller, Max