Echt

//ɛkt// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Proper, real, genuine, true to type.

    "I had heard [the phrase] in Lamb House, Rye, but it was less echt Henry James than Henry James mocking echt Meredith."

Adjective
  1. 1
    not fake or counterfeit wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
genuinegenuine

Example

More examples

"I had heard [the phrase] in Lamb House, Rye, but it was less echt Henry James than Henry James mocking echt Meredith."

Etymology

Borrowed from German echt (“real”). The German term originates from Middle Low German echt (“lawful, genuine”), contraction of ehacht, variant form of ehaft (“lawful, pertaining to the law”) from ê(e) (“law, marriage”). First use in English appears c. 1916.

Related phrases

true to type

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.