eingestanden

Eingestanden is a German past participle meaning confessed or admitted. It is the participle form of the verb eingestehen, a separable prefix verb that means to admit or confess. In standard usage, eingestanden describes someone who has acknowledged a fact or guilt, typically in a formal or semi-formal context such as a confession to a crime or to certain facts.

Etymology and form: The word derives from the prefix ein- added to stehen, used figuratively to mean standing forward to acknowledge something. As a participle, eingestanden is used with the auxiliary haben in perfect tenses (er hat die Tat eingestanden).

Usage and nuance: Eingestanden signals that the admission has been made and is often associated with legal or moral implications. It tends to be more formal or decisive than allgemein zugegeben or einfach zugegeben. In journalism and court reports, it is common to say that a person has eingestanden, for example: Der Angeklagte hat die Tat eingestanden. The form can also appear attributively in phrases like eingestandenes Verbrechen or eingestandenes Geständnis, where the emphasis is on the fact of the admission.

See also: Geständnis (confession), Schuld (guilt), Beichte (confession in a moral or religious sense).