Word.ws English Dictionary

katzenjammer

/ˈkætsənd͡ʒæmə(ɹ)/

katzenjammer noun: a hangover.

Noun (1)

katzenjammer (plural katzenjammers)

  1. A hangover.
    • Also, I had found my way into the realm of the mind, and I was intellectually intoxicated. (Alas! as I was to learn at a later period, intellectual intoxication too, has its katzenjammer.)1913 August, Jack London, John Barleycorn, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC
    • In those days a still-birth brought as high as ten dollars and after riding the shoot-the-chutes we always left a little stale beer for the morning because the finest thing in the world for Katzenjammer is a glass of stale beer.1936, Henry Miller, “Burlesk”, in Black Spring, Paris: The Obelisk Press […], →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, 1963, →ISBN, page 229
  2. Jitters; discord; confusion.
    • Tell you the truth, I've had an intimation from the State Department—unofficially, of course—that whenever a soldier of fortune demands a fleet of gunboats in a case of revolutionary katzenjammer, I should cut the cable, give him all the tobacco he wants, and after he's shot take his clothes, if...1909 April, O. Henry [pseudonym; William Sydney Porter], “Two Renegades”, in Roads of Destiny, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 356
  3. Depression.

Noun (2) capitalized: Katzenjammer

Katzenjammer (plural Katzenjammers)

  1. Alternative letter-case form of katzenjammer.
    • He is naked to the waist to show the plump white arms and shoulders and the satiny skin of the voluptuary; one of those men whose heads and whose stomachs are too loyal ever to give them Katzenjammer or remorse.1871, John Hay, Castilian Days

Forms of katzenjammer

pluralkatzenjammers
alternative formKatzenjammer
pluralKatzenjammers

Origin of katzenjammer

Borrowed from German Katzenjammer (“hangover”, literally “the wailing of cats”); a determinative compound formed from Katze (“cat”) + -n- + Jammer (“wailing; lamentation”).

Questions about katzenjammer

What does katzenjammer mean?
Katzenjammer means a hangover.
What part of speech is katzenjammer?
Katzenjammer is a noun.
How do you pronounce katzenjammer?
Katzenjammer is pronounced /ˈkætsənd͡ʒæmə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of katzenjammer?
The plural of katzenjammer is katzenjammers.

Words near katzenjammer in the dictionary

  1. Katz
  2. Katz syndrome
  3. katzbalger
  4. katzbalgers
  5. Katzenberg
  6. katzenjammer
  7. katzenjammers
  8. Katzenklavier
  9. Katzer
  10. Katzers
  11. Katzian

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: katzenjammer (page history and authors); Katzenjammer (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-katzenjammer.wav.

Cite this entry: “katzenjammer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/katzenjammer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.