Goethe

American  

[gur-tuh, gœ-tuh] / ˈgɜr tə, ˈgœ tə /

noun

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

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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)

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Other Word Forms

• Goethean
  adjective
• Goethian
  adjective

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Goethe

"Are we not closing it because we believe the Goethe Institutes in Russia would then be closed in retaliation?" he asked.

From Barron's ● Sep. 1, 2026

"We say that spacetime is curved by mass," explains Christian Ecker from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Goethe University Frankfurt.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 30, 2026

Muratov read the works of those who had traveled on the Italian Grand Tour before him: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Walter Pater, Vernon Lee.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

The philosophical bent of Palantir came from Karp, who holds a Ph.D. in neoclassical social theory from Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 4, 2026

Faust, as portrayed by Goethe, was an intellectual who sold his soul to the devil for worldly knowledge, power and pleasure.

From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall