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I'm working on a dictionary and am using German and Dutch as a reference. In my research, I've come across two translations for 'misogyny:' Frauenhass and Misogynie. Which one is the more commonly used or understood, if either?

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  • Hi, isn't an important goal of each dictionary to include most possible translations?
    – npst
    Nov 1, 2018 at 15:22
  • It is, but at the moment, I'm working on the first edition and I'm trying to lighten my workload, including the more common translations first and getting to the others later.
    – user34995
    Nov 1, 2018 at 15:23
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    I would have expected Frauenfeindlichkeit to be a more common term. It expresses "only" (though possibly strong) discriminaton, whereas Frauenhass seems to imply almost physical violence. Then again, I guess that Misogynie covers the whole spectrum Nov 1, 2018 at 17:55
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    To be honest, I've never come across Frauenhass, only Frauenfeindlichkeit or Misogynie. Hass is a very strong, personal feeling - Feindlichkeit (animosity) is much weaker and could be mere disrespect in this case. However, in speech Frauenhasser probably will be the most common term for misogynist, not last because Frauenfeind or Misogyn are terrible terms.
    – Chieron
    Nov 1, 2018 at 22:25
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    @HagenvonEitzen: "whereas Frauenhass seems to imply almost physical violence" - very true, maybe not even "almost". Personally, the word "Frauenhass" makes me think of conversations (from movies) about reasons for a murderer to pick their victim, whereas "Frauenfeindlichkeit" rather evokes the idea of bullying female work co-workers or treating female customers with disrespect, for instance. Nov 1, 2018 at 23:46

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"Misogynie" is a technical term, it would only be used in scientific publications/lectures or if the speaker wants to impress people with his or her high-level education. It might not be understood by everyone.
In normal conversation "Frauenhass" would normally be used.

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    Frauenfeindlichkeit is the most common term. That whole Hass theme is grossly beaten up already.
    – Janka
    Nov 1, 2018 at 18:35
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    @Janka is right - I did only take the two words the OP asked for into consideration. Nov 2, 2018 at 7:55
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The Institut für deutsche Sprache has published a list of German primary words (Grundwortliste). This list contains German primary words and the frequency class they belong to.

The frequency class 0 is defined by the frequency of the most often used German word (which is »der«). Words that appear in almost the same frequency are in the same class. (Also in class 0 are: »das« and »die«)

All words in class 1 appear half as often as words in class 0 (there is no word in class 1).
All words in class 2 appear half as often as words in class 1 (therefore 1/4 as often as »der«). There are 2 words in class 2: »in« and »und«.
Class 3: Half as often as class 2, therefore 1/8 as often as »der«. In class 3 are 7 words: mit, sein, werden, ein, von, haben and zu.
And so on.

The catalog contains all German words up to class 25, and Frauenhass and Misogynie are both in this catalog. If you look them up, you'll find:

Frauenhass and Misogynie both are in the same class, namely in frequency class 21.

This means: non of both words is more than twice as often used as the other, so they are used mit approximately the same frequency.


But if you use Google Ngram viewer, you will find a different picture:

Ngram »Frauenhass« vs. »Misogynie« Ngram »Frauenhass« vs. »Misogynie«

This chart says: In the present, »Misogynie« is used about five times as often as »Frauenhass«.

Why does one resource say »they are equal frequent« when an other resource says »frequency is 1:5«?

This is because they are based on different corpuses. Google Ngram viewer only analyses texts published in books. Books scanned by google to be more precise. But the Institut für deutsche Sprache also analyses German texts from newspapers, magazines, Websites, and many other resources.

So, you can say »Misogynie« is used more frequent in books than in newspapers, while for »Frauenhass« the opposite seems to be true.

But you still have no numbers about spoken German, for a simple reason: There is no really big enough machine-processable corpus of spoken German.

So we only can guess about the frequencies in spoken German, and I think I do not make big mistakes when I say:

In spoken German »Frauenhass« is much more often used than »Misogynie«.

But I can not proof it.

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    That is a very good approach to go at it. As some others have pointed out, "Frauenfeindlichkeit" is more common than both "Frauenhass" and "Misogynie", even though the meaning is slightly different. Your sources back that up: (1) Frauenfeindlichkeit is in frequency class 19, thus about four times as frequent as the other two. (2) In Google Ngram the Frauenfeindlichkeit curve is constantly above both Mysognie and since about 1970. Nov 2, 2018 at 13:42
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A

Misogynist

has the attitude of hatred, contempt or prejudice against women, and Frauenfeind or Frauenhasser mean the same, just in other (non-Greek) rooted words, the choice depending on style and audience. Accordingly a

Missausagynist

has the attitude of hatred, contempt or prejudice against meat products, especially sausages. The German term is Wursthasser, partly synonymous to Vegetarier and Gemüseesser. A more polite form would be Wurstverächter or generally Kostverächter. Note that there is also the term

Frauenverächter

although it is not in frequent use. Note also that eine Frau vernaschen is not directly related to either of them but would be reflected in the noun

Frauenvernascher

Generally I find that exploring semantic fields is a useful and entertaining activity not least for learners of foreign languages.

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