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When it comes to uncommon-but-nifty words, echt is true-blue, the real deal, the genuine article. (Actually it’s an adjective, not an article, of course—but you get the drift.) The earliest known use of echt—a synonym of true and genuine—in English is credited to playwright George Bernard Shaw, who used the word in a 1916 journal article. Shaw borrowed echt directly from German, but since then others have also adapted the Yiddish word ekht, meaning “true to form.” Both the German echt and Yiddish ekht share the same Middle High German source, both contributed to the English echt, and both, therefore, are the real (etymological) McCoy.
Examples of echt in a Sentence
New York Times, 6 July 2022
Wood entrances me as the Arensberg circle’s most outstanding echt American, other than Man Ray.
—Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 7 Mar. 2022
Its design is echt seventies, using more fonts than the exhibition had artists, and features photographs of the six artists, from grinning baby pictures to pensive head shots.
—Andrea K. Scott, The New Yorker, 3 July 2021
Pot and pseudo-profundity go together like pot and finger food, and there’s no more pseudo-profound album from the pseudo-profound, echt-awesome world of prog-rock than Fragile.
—Vulture Editors, Vulture, 20 Apr. 2021
Cite this Entry
“Echt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/echt. Accessed 20 May. 2025.
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