Stossen

Stossen is a German word primarily known as the verb stoßen, meaning to push, to thrust, or to bump into something. It is a strong verb with umlautling in the stem: ich stoße, du stößt, er stößt; wir stoßen, ihr stoßt, sie stoßen. The simple past is stieß; the past participle is gestoßen. In compound tenses the auxiliary is haben for transitive uses (ich habe ihn gestoßen) and sein for intransitive uses that indicate collision or movement against a surface (ich bin gegen die Wand gestoßen).

The verb can be used with a direct object, as in jemanden stoßen (to push someone), or with prepositional phrases such as gegen die Wand stoßen (to collide with the wall). The separable prefix form anstoßen exists, meaning to toast (wir stoßen mit dem Glas an) or, in some senses, to bump lightly; angestoßen is the past participle in that construction.

Stossen also appears as a noun in the standard form der Stoß, meaning a push, a shove, or an impact. Plural is Stöße. In physics and engineering, Stoß is used to refer to an impulse or collision, and in compound terms it appears in words like Stoßdämpfer (shock absorber) or Stoßrichtung (direction of impact).

The spelling variant Stossen exists in older orthography, in some dialect texts, or as a surname; in modern standard German the verb is written stoßen and the noun as Stoß. Translations include “to push,” “to thrust,” “to bump,” and “a push/impact,” depending on context.