zurückkehrt

Zurückkehrt is the third-person singular present tense form of the German verb zurückkehren. In standard modern German, the present tense of zurückkehren is written as two words: er kehrt zurück. Therefore, the single-word form zurückkehrt is generally regarded as nonstandard and is mostly found in headlines, older texts, or in contexts where spacing is omitted for stylistic reasons. The correct past participle is zurückgekehrt, used with the auxiliary sein to form the Perfekt: Er ist zurückgekehrt.

Etymology and meaning: zurückkehren is a compound of prefix zurück- meaning “back” or “return” and the verb kehren “to turn, to return.” The word traces to the history of the German verb system and is widely used to express returning to a place, situation, or condition.

Usage and examples: In ordinary prose, you would say “Er kehrt heute Abend zurück.” The form zurückkehrt may appear in titles or stylized writing, but it is not the standard present-tense spelling. The related noun Rückkehr denotes a return or homecoming, and the verb form zurückkehren can be inflected in all standard tenses (e.g., er kehrte zurück; er ist zurückgekehrt).

See also: zurückkehren, Rückkehr.