Kontakten

Kontakten is a German noun form primarily used as the dative plural of Kontakt, the word meaning “contact” or “connection.” It appears in sentences that require the dative case or after prepositions that govern dative, for example, mit Kontakten (with contacts) or zu Kontakten (to contacts). The standard nominative and accusative plural is Kontakte, the genitive plural is der Kontakte, and the dative plural with a definite article is den Kontakten.

The term is commonly used to describe social or professional networks, personal ties, or interfaces in technology that connect components. In everyday German, speakers more often refer to Kontakte when speaking about a general set of connections; Kontakten is used when the grammatical role in the sentence requires the dative case.

Outside German, cognates or borrowed forms exist in other Germanic languages, where similar roots appear in nouns meaning “contact” or “the contact” in definite form. The etymology traces to Kontakt from Latin contactus via French contact and English contact; the word spread widely with the development of telecommunication, business networking, and science.

See also: Kontakt, Kontakte, Networking, Contact.