Ungültige

Ungültige is the inflected form of the German adjective ungültig, meaning not valid or void. It describes something whose status or eligibility does not meet required standards, such as documents, signatures, numbers, dates, permissions, or rules. The term is common in legal, administrative, technical, and everyday language to indicate invalidity or lack of binding effect.

In German, adjective endings depend on gender, number, and case. The form ungültige is typical for feminine singular (nominative or accusative) after a determiner, for example die ungültige Unterschrift or eine ungültige Nummer. It also occurs in the plural nominative or accusative when there is no article, as in ungültige Daten or ungültige Zahlen. Other gender/case combinations use different endings, such as ungültiger (masculine nominative), ungültiges (neuter nominative/accusative), and the various plural forms.

Common usages include legal or official contexts (a contract or license that is ungültig), administrative situations (ungültige Eingabe, invalid input), and technical or data-related settings (ungültige Daten in a database). The opposite term is gültig (valid).

Etymology: ungültig is formed from un- (negation) plus gültig (valid), mirroring similar negation patterns in German. The specific form ungültige is one of several inflected variants used to fit the noun it modifies.

See also: gültig, Ungültigkeit (invalidity).