gestanden

Gestanden is the past participle of the German verb stehen, meaning to stand. It is formed with the prefix ge- and the infinitive ending -en, yielding gestanden. In standard German, gestanden is used with the auxiliary haben to form the perfect and pluperfect tenses.

As a past participle, gestanden denotes a state of having stood or the duration of standing in the past. It occurs most commonly in the present perfect: Ich habe gestanden, Du hast gestanden, Er hat gestanden. It can also appear in the pluperfect: Ich hatte gestanden. The simple past of stehen is stand/standest, not gestanden.

A notable nuance is that gestanden can also be the past participle of the verb gestehen, which means to confess. In this case, gestanden has the meaning “confessed.” For example: Der Angeklagte hat gestanden. The meaning is determined by context, since both verbs share the same past participle form in many sentences.

Examples:

- Ich habe zwei Stunden gestanden, bevor der Bus kam. (I have stood for two hours before the bus came.)

- Der Verdächtige hat gestanden und die Tat gestanden. (The suspect has confessed and admitted to the act.)

Etymologically, gestanden derives from the Germanic verb standing, with the regular ge- prefix and -en suffix in the past participle. It is irregular in the preterite (stand), and its use is primarily in descriptive or narrative past contexts.