Wiener

How to spell wiener

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wiener

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wiener mean?

1. nounA thin smoked sausage, similar to a frankfurter, often served in a bun as a hot dog.

Wiener in a sentence

• He grilled a wiener and tucked it into a soft bun.

• The children asked for ketchup on every wiener at the picnic.

Where does wiener come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from German, where Wiener simply means 'of Vienna', the German name for that city being Wien. The full original term was Wiener Wurstchen, literally 'little Vienna sausage', naming the thin smoked sausage style associated with the Austrian capital. As German speakers emigrated to North America in the nineteenth century, the term was shortened and anglicised into the casual food word we use today. The spelling keeps the German order of the vowels, 'ie' rather than 'ei', which is exactly the trap, since many writers wrongly produce 'weiner'. A useful memory hook is that Vienna is spelled with the 'i' first, and wiener follows the same lead.

How the word is built

• Wien (German name for Vienna)
• -er (suffix meaning 'of or from')