Zurückgekehrt

Zurückgekehrt is the past participle of the German verb zurückkehren, meaning to return or to come back. It is used to describe someone or something that has completed a return. In ordinary speech it most often appears with the auxiliary sein to form the perfect tense: Er ist zurückgekehrt. As an adjective it can modify a noun, for example die zurückgekehrte Familie or zurückgekehrte Soldaten.

Zurück means back, and kehren means to turn or to return. The compound expresses the action of returning. The past participle is formed with ge- attached to the verb stem, yielding zurückgekehrt. The prefix zurück- is inseparable here and signals a completed return rather than a repeated action.

In contemporary German, zurückgekehrt is commonly used as a finite verb with ist, e.g., Er ist zurückgekehrt, and as a predicative or attributive adjective, e.g., eine zurückgekehrte Gemeinde. It is sometimes preferred over wiedergekehrt when emphasizing the act of having come back rather than simply being back. It also appears in headlines, biographical notes, and literary titles.

With its neutral, factual tone, zurückgekehrt is a standard term in German lexicon, commonly found in encyclopedic and journalistic contexts, and in historical or biographical writing to denote return or repatriation.