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There are some words in German which sound as if they were English foreign words, but have a completely different meaning in English, e.g.:

Handy – mobile phone

Homeoffice – Working from Home

This is different from false friends, because they are new recently created words and, such as in the case of Handy, many Germans think that it is just English.

Links to lists of such words are welcome as well.

BTW: the German Homeoffice has the synonyms Telearbeit and Heimarbeit.

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    "home office" (with a space) is a valid english word though: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_office/home_office
    – Pekka
    Commented May 29, 2011 at 16:31
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    I reject your premise that these are not false friends. "Es handelt sich hierbei um Paare von Wörtern oder Ausdrücken aus zwei Sprachen, die orthografisch oder phonetisch ähnlich sind, jedoch unterschiedliche Bedeutungen haben. [...] Dabei können die Wörter entweder ursprungsverwandt sein, sich aber verschieden entwickelt haben [...], oder eine rein zufällige Ähnlichkeit aufweisen." Suits to a T.
    – RegDwight
    Commented May 29, 2011 at 16:57
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    @RegDwight In any case they would be a special subclass and the situation is different. The native speaker is not aware, that the foreigner might misunderstand him, because he thinks it is a known foreign word.
    – bernd_k
    Commented May 30, 2011 at 4:58
  • @RegDwight: Zu Handy ist allenfalls handy ähnlich, welches handlich bedeuttet. Was zu home office der false friend sein soll, darüber rätsel ich noch.
    – user unknown
    Commented Jul 29, 2014 at 4:31

3 Answers 3

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Wikipedia calls them "pseudo-anglicisms" and has a long list of them from a number of different languages.

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I don't know if there is a linguistic term for it, but I would call it pseudoenglische Wortschöpfung or simply Pseudoenglisch.

Another term in German is Scheinanglizismus, a sub-term of what German linguistics call Pseudoentlehnungen.

Other examples:

  • Showmaster
  • Talkmaster
  • Oldtimer
  • Body bag (eigentlich: Leichensack)
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    @FUZxxl: We call it normally Denglisch, with an e.
    – swegi
    Commented May 29, 2011 at 18:09
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    @FUZxxl: According to Google and Wikipedia, there is.
    – swegi
    Commented May 29, 2011 at 18:33
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    another lovely example is "Beamer" ^^
    – ladybug
    Commented May 29, 2011 at 20:06
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    Another example I can think of seems to be pan-European, appearing in at least a few languages: "camping" to mean "campground".
    – hippietrail
    Commented Jun 2, 2011 at 14:29
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    @hippietrail: 'appearing in at least a few languages: "camping" to mean "campground"' - not in German, though. The word "Camping" in German denotes the activity of staying on a campground, whereas the campground itself would be called "Campingplatz".
    – O. R. Mapper
    Commented Mar 13 at 7:43
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here are a few more:

  • Evergreen. english: a tree that is also green in winter. german: an old song that is still widely known.
  • Beamer: a projector (idk: does this word exist in English?)
  • public viewing. english: presenting the corpse of a deceased. german: TV in public places (sometimes using a beamer ehm projector)

an essay on the topic, which lists a few more examples: http://www.vds-ev.de/textbeitraege/729-text-blockbuster . The site also has a huge index of anglicisms, but has no special index for the misleading ones.

a bb thread on the subject: https://de.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=984028 includes the hint to google for "false friends".

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    This does not answer the question. Btw, a BMW is colloquially called a beamer (possibly with different spelling).
    – Carsten S
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 14:49
  • @CarstenS, I thought so, too, but the question states "Links to lists of such words are welcome as well."
    – Iris
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 15:14
  • @Iris and Titus, ah, ok.
    – Carsten S
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 15:15
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    On the other hand, Evergreen is no pseudo-anglizismus (oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/evergreen?q=evergreen) and beamer and public viewing are already listed in the long wikipedia list in the answer of trema. And the pokerstategy-link is just a unstructrured forum in German.
    – Iris
    Commented Jun 13, 2016 at 15:17

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