Goethe

American  

[gur-tuh, gœ-tuh] / ˈgɜr tə, ˈgœ tə /

noun

1. Johann Wolfgang von 1749–1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher.

---

Goethe British  

/ ˈɡøːtə /

noun

1. Johann Wolfgang von (joˈhan ˈvɔlfɡaŋ fɔn). 1749–1832, German poet, novelist, and dramatist, who settled in Weimar in 1775. His early works of the Sturm und Drang period include the play Götz von Berlichingen (1773) and the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774). After a journey to Italy (1786–88) his writings, such as the epic play Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787) and the epic idyll Hermann und Dorothea (1797), showed the influence of classicism. Other works include the Wilhelm Meister novels (1796–1829) and his greatest masterpiece Faust (1808; 1832)

---

Other Word Forms

• Goethean
  adjective
• Goethian
  adjective

Example Sentences

Rosenzweig was born in Kassel in 1886, into a German-Jewish bourgeoisie for which Beethoven, Goethe and the Frankfurter Zeitung newspaper were as formative as the Torah had once been.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 6, 2026

In the play, which begins as historic epic and becomes, for Goethe, increasing personal and interior, Egmont gains perspective on the complexities of his place in politics by contemplating nature and being.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 19, 2026

Karp’s track record included a PhD in neoclassical social theory from Goethe University Frankfurt.

From MarketWatch • Nov. 25, 2025

In an international study led by Goethe University, researchers have now identified a mechanism that interferes with the splicing process in a more subtle way.

From Science Daily • Nov. 14, 2024

The great German writer and statesman Johann Wolfgang von Goethe later marveled at how easily she moved back and forth between art and science, between the “inspection of nature and the aims of painting.”

From "The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian's Art Changed Science" by Joyce Sidman