auf der Straße unterwegs sein

Question

I have read/head the following sentence in tagesschau 20:00 Uhr, 27.08.2024 (7:30 m):

• spoken text:

  Die Polizei wurde gerufen, von Anwohnern, weil ein Mann hier auf der Straße wohl mit Messern unterwegs war, sie fühlten sich bedroht, daraufhin kam die Polizeistreife, entdecke den Mann hier in einer Nebenstraße, ...
  _{(The spoken sentence is much longer. The reporter adds more and more main clauses to it without lowering the voice at the end of these clauses while talking about the police shooting that man and his dead bady still laying in the street.)}

• subtitles:

  Anwohner haben die Polizei gerufen. Ein Mann war auf der Straße mit Messer unterwegs. Die Polizei kam und entdeckte den Mann in einer Nebenstraße. Er kam aus einem Haus mit Messern bewaffnet. ...

What does "unterwegs" mean in this context? I cannot match any of the meanings in https://www.wordreference.com/deen/unterwegs .

DeepL Translator ignores it when translating the sentence above:

A man was on the street with a knife.

Answer 1

First of, the sentence must be

Ein Mann war auf der Straße mit einem Messer unterwegs.

otherwise it's not correct German.

Unterwegs literally means "on one's way", here in the sense of "walking around", but the meaning is broader. The word is commonly used in phrases like Der Mann ist unterwegs zur Arbeit (regardless of the means of transport he uses).

So, a better English translation of the above sentence would be

A man was walking (around) on the street with a knife.

Answer 2

In this context, "unterwegs" means "to move without a specific destination" and it could be translated to the English verb "walk around". A better translation of the subtitled sentence (with the missing N at the end of "Messern" added)

Ein Mann war auf der Straße mit Messern unterwegs

would be:

A man was walking around on the street with knives.

Answer 3

In what manner was WordReference.com not useful? Click on the tab [WR reverse (23)]. There are 23 typical usages of unterwegs sein and the first two belong to the section Wichtigste Übersetzungen (most important translations). These most important translations are:

• #1 underway; under way (moving) unterwegs
• #2 abroad (outside of home) unterwegs = nicht zuhause

And #2 is exactly the meaning you are looking for.

The core meaning of unterwegs is: »on the way«, which is meant to describe a place and not a movement. The place where a person is located is an elongated and more or less flat surface called way and the person is located on it (the body is above it and the feet are touching it). Of course, if you are located on a way, then you are usually moving along that way, but that is neither the core meaning of English »on the way« nor of German »unterwegs«. The main meaning refers to the place.

But why does DeepL ignore unterwegs when it translates the German sentence into English?

Here is a complete translation:

Ger: Ein Mann war auf der Straße mit Messern unterwegs.
Eng: A man was on the way on the street with knives.

But in English the sequence on the way on the street contains two almost identical informations about the man's location. This is bad style, and DeepL always tries to provide something that a native speaker would have said in the same situation. And for that reason it eliminated one of both location details.

---

Additional information:

The subtitles do not really match the spoken text. They contain the same information, but in short sentences and with simplified grammar. Nevertheless, they contain an error (probably a typo). The sentence marked in bold in the question is grammatically incorrect:

• Original sentence:

  Ein Mann war auf der Straße mit Messer unterwegs.
  ^{A man was on the street with knife.}

• Two possible corrections:

  1. Ein Mann war auf der Straße mit einem Messer unterwegs.
     ^{A man was on the street with a knife.}
  2. Ein Mann war auf der Straße mit Messern unterwegs.
     ^{A man was on the street with knives.}

The speaker was talking all the time about a man with more than one knife (he used the plural form all the time), so version 2 is correct.