besagte

Besagte is a German demonstrative adjective derived from the verb besagen, meaning “to signify” or “to state.” In contemporary usage the term functions primarily as a form of the determiner “der/die/das …‑e” and translates loosely to “the aforementioned” or “the said” in English. It appears most frequently in formal, academic, or legal texts where a speaker or writer refers back to a previously mentioned person, object, or concept without repeating its full description.

Grammatically, besagte agrees in gender, number, and case with the noun it modifies. In the nominative singular it appears as besagter (masculine), besagte (feminine), and besagtes (neuter); the plural form is besagte for all genders. Its declension follows the strong adjective pattern, and it can be used with or without an article, though the combination der besagte or die besagte is common in written German.

Etymologically, the word traces back to Middle High German besagen, itself a compound of be‑ (an intensifying prefix) and sagen (“to say”). The participial form besagt gave rise to the adjective, which entered Standard German in the early modern period and became established in bureaucratic and scholarly language.

In legal contexts, besagte serves to identify parties or items previously defined in a statute or contract, thereby ensuring precision and avoiding ambiguity. For example, “Gemäß § 5 des Vertrags ist die besagte Lieferung bis zum 30. April zu erledigen.” In everyday speech the term is rare, often replaced by simpler pronouns such as dieser or jene.

Overall, besagte illustrates how German utilizes derived adjectives to create concise references to earlier discourse, maintaining clarity in formal communication.