Jahre

Jahre is the plural form of the German noun Jahr, meaning a year or a period of twelve months. In everyday use, Jahre is also employed to express durations or spans of time, rather than a specific calendar year. It appears in phrases such as zwei Jahre, drei Jahre lang, or in compound expressions like eine Laufzeit von fünf Jahren.

In common usage, Jahre can denote both calendar years and measured time. For example, in dating events one might say im Jahr 1999 to refer to the year 1999, while for durations one might say zwei Jahre oder mehrere Jahre, to indicate a length of time. The phrase seit Jahren conveys a meaning of “for years,” often implying an ongoing timeframe, and in den letzten Jahren means “in recent years.” When talking about historical periods, man-made or natural changes can be described as spanning many Jahre.

grammatically, Jahre is the plural of the neuter noun Jahr. The singular is das Jahr, while the plural is die Jahre. The genitive plural is der Jahre and the dative plural is den Jahren, as in in den Jahren 1990–1999 or über die letzten Jahre. Numerals combine with Jahre to express durations or counts, with the form remaining das/der/dem depending on case, but Jahre itself remains unchanged after numerals in the accusative and nominative plural, e.g., zwei Jahre, fünf Jahre.

Etymology: Jahre derives from the Old High German jar or jār, related to the English year and the Dutch jaar. The word has cognates across most Germanic languages and traces back to a Proto-Germanic root meaning a 12-month cycle in a solar year.