''germane'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''germane'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260817185222-00-⌔

germane - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

germane (comparative more germane, superlative most germane)

• Related to a topic of discussion or consideration.
  • ✤ Synonyms: pertinent, relevant, apt, on - topic; see also Thesaurus: pertinent
  • ✤ Yet this much is germane to the present inquiry:¹
  • ✤ Connors was addicted to this racquet and kept using it even after Wilson stopped making it, forfeiting millions in potential endorsement money by doing so. Connors was eccentric (and kind of repulsive) in lots of other ways, too, none of which are germane to this article.²
  • ✤ Valentine’s Day means different things for different people. […] Most germane to the episode, for Lisa, Valentine’s Day means being the only person in her entire class to give Ralph a Valentine after noticing him looking crestfallen and alone at his desk.³
  • ✤ Partway through our call, Horowitz excuses himself to answer the door for a package. The parcel that arrives is, in fact, germane to our conversation: a copy of Stay Alive: Berlin 1939-1945 by Ian Baruma.⁴

Noun

germane (countable and uncountable, plural germanes)

• (inorganic chemistry) germanium tetrahydride, GeH${}_4$
• (organic chemistry, especially in combination) Any organic derivative of this compound.

Etymology 1

A variant form of german (“having the same parents; related”), adapted in this sense in allusions to its use in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (see quotations at germaine).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /dʒɜː(ɹ)ˈmeɪn/
• Rhymes: -eɪn
• (US) IPA: /d͡ʒɝˈmeɪn/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Audio (Australia): 🔊
• Rhymes: -eɪn

Etymology 2

From germ(anium) +‎ -ane.⁵

Printed 2026-08-17.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1924, W. D. Ross., translator, Aristotle, Metaphysics. Nashotah, Wisconsin, USA: The Classical Library, 2001, Book 1, Part 5. ↩

2. 1997, David Foster Wallace, “Tennis Player Michael Joyce’s Professional Artistry as a Paradigm of Certain Stuff About Choice, Freedom, Limitation, Joy, Grotesquerie, and Human Completeness”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, Kindle edition, Little, Brown Book Group: ↩

3. 2012 August 5, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993)”, in ‎${}^{[1]}$: ↩

4. 2026 June 21, Annabel Nugent, “The authors who admit to using AI: ‘I have absolutely no shame about it’”, in The Independent ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

5. IUPAC (2014), Henri A. Favre and Warren H. Powell, editors, Nomenclature of Organic Chemistry: IUPAC Recommendations and Preferred Names 2013, Cambdridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, pages 131, 143–144 ↩

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Secondary

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