zweiten

Zweiten is a German inflected form of the ordinal numeral zweit, meaning second. It functions as an adjective that can modify nouns or, less commonly, as a noun itself referring to the second item or group in a sequence.

As an attributive adjective, zweiten appears with nouns in various combinations of gender, number, and case. Examples include das zweite Kapitel (the second chapter), der zweite Mann (the second man), and die zweite Wohnung (the second apartment). The exact ending of the form changes with the article and the grammatical case. For instance, den zweiten Versuch means the second attempt (accusative masculine singular), and im zweiten Stock means on the second floor (dative masculine singular).

In plural usage, zweiter can appear as a substantive when used without an accompanying noun, such as die Zweiten, meaning the seconds or the second ones. This usage is common in contexts like sports or competitions to refer to a second team or group.

Etymologically, zweiter derives from zwei (two) with the ordinal suffix -ten, and it is part of the broader German declension system for ordinal adjectives. The form zweiten therefore reflects its role as a declined variant of zweit, adapted to fit the syntactic context of the sentence.

Summary: Zweiten is a grammatical form rather than a separate vocabulary entry. It denotes the second item in a sequence and changes its ending according to case, number, gender, and article. It also occurs as a substantive plural in certain contexts, such as referring to a second team or the group of seconds.