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I want to translate the word "safekeeping" to German, but not in the context of the word "Aufbewahrung". Rather, I want it to describe a type of person, kind of like in the following definition

safekeeping: the act of keeping something safe

but where it is an adjective that describes a person who is careful and not a risk taker. My best guess would be something like "aufbewahrend" but I don't think that's used much. So any help would be appreciated...

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  • I must admit, what you describe still sounds like "Aufbewahrung" to me. If you want to stress the "safe", you could also say "zur sicheren Aufbewahrung". And yes, you are right, you cannot use this as an adjective, but the construction is simply different in German, and probably even slightly idiomatic.
    – Gerhard
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 10:46
  • By the way: could you add an example of how you'd like to use the word in English? It's a bit tricky to understand what you exactly mean from your question.
    – Gerhard
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 11:08

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An adjective describing someone who does not take risks is "vorsichtig".

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The word you are looking for is bewahren. Unlike aufbewahren, it has no connotation of storage, but of safety and protection, often in a rather abstact sense.

The person with this attributes is ein Bewahrer, for example ein Bewahrer von Traditionen or Wissen.

The object of his efforts is bewahrt, e.g. "Er bewahrte sie vor Unglück." (He kept her out of harms way,)

You can keep a secret: "Er bewahrte ein Geheimnis", but not "Er bewahrte ein Geheimnis auf.", unless you are talking about something like a piece of paper and want to stress that it's a physical object in a locked place.

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  • Side note: sometimes, these words may come across a tad stilted... Give us more information to work with, and we may come up with better suggestions, adapted to specific use cases.
    – Stephie
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 11:29
  • The problem is that I don't have a specific way of using the word...that's why I picked "vorsichtig". But thank you for the word "bewahren", I'll keep that in mind...
    – user3323
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 13:57

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