How to use umlaut in a sentence

18 example sentences · noun, verb

Umlaut means an assimilatory process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vocoid that is separated by one or more consonants. Example: “"Naïve" takes an umlaut because it is pronounced as two syllables.”

Examples of umlaut by meaning

nounAn assimilatory process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vocoid that is separated by one or more...

In fits of concealed despair that went unnoticed even by those close enough to touch, Julien cursed the language of umlauts, eszetts, and gerunds.1997, Matthew Piepenburg, Time and the Maiden, →ISBN, page 62
I don't know whether an umlaut is one or two tittles.2008, Roy Blount, Alphabet juice: the energies, gists, and spirits of letters

nounSynonym of diaeresis.

"Naïve" takes an umlaut because it is pronounced as two syllables.

verbTo place an umlaut over (a vowel).

We kept some of the foreign alphabet symbols such as the accented and umlauted vowels and Greek letters and used the rest of the space for more esoteric linguistic symbols such as "barred-l," and "engma."1989, Elizabeth A. Edwards, “A Computer Column for All Seasons”, in Margaret S. Boone, editor, Practicing Anthropology, volume 11, number 2

verbTo modify (a word) so that an umlaut is required in it.

an umlauting vowel

More sentences with umlaut

His version of masculinity is a parody of an über male (complete with the goose-steppy authoritarian umlaut).2019 January 3, Gene Weingarten, “President Trump: The new Mae West? Let us explain.”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The…. From the entry über
His bag was graffed up with band names I didn’t recognize—lightning bolts and heavy-metal umlauts.2008, Simmone Howell, “Lucky Smoke”, in Everything Beautiful, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children’s Books, →ISBN, page 60. From the entry heavy-metal umlaut
It's meant to say 'Gewurztraminer', with an umlaut over the 'u'.1998 June 3, Matthew Lawrenson, “new page!!!!!”, in alt.games.creatures (Usenet). From the entry teutonophone
The tilde and the circumflex have a place in the ASCII scheme but the wedge and the umlaut do not.1996, Geoffrey Keith Pullum, William A. Ladusaw, Phonetic Symbol Guide, 2nd edition, page xxvi. From the entry wedge
Please try to stay away from some of those special characters (umlauts, hachas, enyays, etc), because they are 8-bit and non-standard.1994 June 7, Jeff Kopmanis, “LSM: New Release: 05JUN94”, in comp.os.linux.development (Usenet). From the entry enyay
One of many acts of delinquency promoted by Mötley Crüe is free use of the heavy-metal umlaut with reckless disregard for lïnguïstïc cönventiöns.2007, Greg P. Herriges, “Smokin’ in the Boys Room”, in Hard Rock Guitar Songs For Dummies, Milwaukee, Wis.: Hal Leonard Corporation…. From the entry heavy-metal umlaut
Even Hüsker Dü’s umlauts were gratuitous.2006, Björn Türoque with Dan Crane, “Björn Is Born”, in To Air Is Human: One Man’s Quest to Become the World’s Greatest Air Guitarist, New…. From the entry metal umlaut
They named themselves after a Danish game called Husker Du, which means “Do you remember?” but added metal umlauts to make it look edgier.2006, Björn Türoque with Dan Crane, “Björn Is Born”, in To Air Is Human: One Man’s Quest to Become the World’s Greatest Air Guitarist, New…. From the entry metal umlaut
Although it sports an umlaut and sounds Scandinavian, the name Häagen-Dazs is pure nonsense—it doesn't actually mean anything in any known language.2004, Evan Morris, “Food and Drink”, in From Altoids to Zima: The Surprising Stories behind 125 Brand Names, New York, N.Y.: Fireside…. From the entry thinking cap
The "regular umlaut" with the dieresis dots originated from a form with two vertical or slanted strokes (not unlike the "hungarumlaut" speaking in typographical terms).2003 July 12, Andreas Höfeld, “Re: middle age font”, in comp.fonts (Usenet). From the entry hungarumlaut
Like you, I have stumbled through life without knowing what an umlaut signifies and looked it up today only because language is my shtick.2001 April 22, William Safire, “Shtick”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry shtick
I typed it as 'Gewurztraminer', but the spell checker had the spelling with the umlaut in it, so I changed it to that.1998 June 3, Matthew Lawrenson, “new page!!!!!”, in alt.games.creatures (Usenet). From the entry teutonophone
The umlaute, or sounds of periphasis (ä, ö, ü), exist in the Catawba alphabet, e. g., in ómä, himself; túhö, small; dürûbi, iron; but they are not in frequent use.1900, Albert S. Gatschet, “Grammatic Sketch of the Catawba Language”, in American Anthropologist, New Series, v 2, n 3, p 528 ^〃…. From the entry umlaute

Meaning of umlaut

noun An assimilatory process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vocoid that is separated by one or more consonants.
noun The umlaut process (as above) that occurred historically in Germanic languages whereby back vowels became front vowels when followed by syllable containing a front vocoid (e.g. Germanic lūsiz > Old English lȳs(i) > Modern English lice).
noun A vowel so assimilated.

Full definition of umlaut

Questions about umlaut in a sentence

How do you use umlaut in a sentence?: Umlaut is used as a noun and verb. For example: “"Naïve" takes an umlaut because it is pronounced as two syllables.”
What is a short sentence with umlaut?: “an umlauting vowel”
What does umlaut mean?: Umlaut means an assimilatory process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vocoid that is separated by one or more consonants.

Adapted from Wiktionary: umlaut (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use umlaut in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/umlaut. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.