herausgreifen

Herausgreifen is a German verb with two main uses. It can describe the physical action of grasping and pulling a object out from inside another object or from a container, and it can also mean to single out or select someone or something from a group, list, or collection. In both senses the word stresses an intentional act of bringing something out into view or into one’s possession.

Grammatical note: herausgreifen is a separable-prefix verb. In the present tense the prefix separates from greifen: ich greife den Schlüssel heraus, er greift den Gegenstand heraus. In the simple past, ich/grief/en) greif(e) den Schlüssel heraus. The perfect form is ich habe den Schlüssel herausgegriffen. The past participle is herausgegriffen.

Usage examples:

- Physical extraction: Der Techniker griff das Teil aus dem Gehäuse heraus.

- Figurative selection: Aus der Menge griff der Aufsichtsperson zwei Kandidaten heraus; aus der Liste heraus gegriffen.

Nuances and related concepts: herausgreifen emphasizes a deliberate action to extract or to select something from its source. It is often used when the object is not simply removed but actively identified among alternatives. In many contexts it can be replaced by herausnehmen or heraussuchen, but those verbs have slightly different focal points—herausnehmen is more about removing something, heraussuchen about looking for and choosing.

See also: auswählen, herausfiltern, herauspicken, heraussuchen. The term is common in everyday language and in written German, including journalism and technical prose, where precise extraction or selection from a group is described.