entgehen

Entgehen is a German verb meaning to escape, to avoid, or to miss. It is used when something fails to come to someone’s attention or when someone or something narrowly avoids a danger or an unwanted outcome. The verb commonly takes a dative object representing the person who is affected, for example: Der Fehler ist mir entgangen (I missed/overlooked the error); Wir sind dem Unglück entgangen (We escaped the misfortune).

In its noticing sense, entgehen describes something going unnoticed by someone: Nichts entgeht mir (Nothing escapes me). In the sense of avoiding harm, it conveys that a person or a group narrowly avoided danger: Dem Unglück entgehen wir oft durch Vorsicht. The past tense is formed with sein: Der Fehler ist mir entgangen; Wir sind dem Risiko entgangen.

Grammatically, entgehen can appear in present tense as entgeht with a dative person phrase, and in the perfect tense with ist entgangen. It can also appear in passive-like constructions such as “ist entgangen,” where the thing that escaped notice becomes the subject in the past participle form.

Nominally, the noun das Entgehen refers to the act of escaping or avoiding something, as in das Entgehen der Strafe (the avoidance of punishment). The term is neutral and widely used in both written and spoken German, with nuances similar to miss, overlook, or escape, depending on context.

Etymology traces entgehen to ent- (a prefix indicating removal or separation) and gehen (to go). It is related to verbs like entkommen (to escape) but has its own distinct usage patterns, especially when describing failure to notice or to experience an event.