Toten

Toten is a German noun meaning “the dead,” used as the plural form of der Tote, the deceased or a dead person. Die Toten refers to people who have died, either collectively in a specific context (for example after a disaster or in war) or as a general concept. The term is common in obituaries, memorials, historical writing, and journalism, where it can refer to the group of people who have died in a particular event or period.

In everyday usage, Toten denotes the people who are no longer living. It can appear in phrases such as “die Toten eines Unfalls” (the dead of an accident) or “die Toten wurden identifiziert.” The word carries a neutral, descriptive tone and does not imply judgments about the circumstances of death; that nuance is usually provided by the surrounding text.

Etymology and related terms: Toten derives from the German root related to death, shared with other Germanic languages in similar form for the concept of the deceased. The singular form is der Tote, and related compounds include Totentanz (dance of death), Totenkopf (death’s head), and other terms that appear in historical, literary, and symbolic contexts.

Distinctions: The verb meaning “to kill” is töten, with an umlaut in the infinitive; it is a separate word from the noun Toten, though both share the same root idea of death. In German orthography, Toten as a noun is capitalized as a standard noun, while töten is a verb and not capitalized.