hoher

Hoher is a German adjective meaning high or tall. It is used to describe size, height or elevation and appears in attributive position before a noun, where it must be declined to reflect the noun’s gender, number and case. The form you use depends on the article or determiner and the grammatical role of the noun.

In practice, typical forms include der hohe Turm (masculine singular, nominative, with definite article), die hohe Tür (feminine singular, nominative, with definite article), das hohe Haus (neuter singular, nominative, with definite article), und die hohen Türme (plural, nominative). With an indefinite article you would say ein hoher Turm, eine hohe Tür, ein hohes Haus, etc. In the strong (no article) declension, masculine nominative can be hoher Turm, feminine nominative hohe Tür, neuter nominative hohes Haus, plural nominative hohe Berge, and corresponding forms for other cases (e.g., des hohen Turms, dem hohen Turm, den hohen Türmen). The exact endings vary by case and number.

Etymology and related forms: hoch comes from Old High German hoh and has cognates in related Germanic languages. The comparative form is hö-er, written with an umlaut (höher), meaning “higher.” This comparative form is a distinct inflected form used to compare heights, and is not the same as the attributive form hohen/hoher shown above.

Other uses: Besides its primary role as an adjective, hoher can appear in proper nouns as part of surnames or place names in German-speaking areas, where it is capitalized as a name. Such uses are less common than its ordinary descriptive function.