/ˌmɔʁɡn̩ʃtʊnt hat ˈɡɔlt ɪm ˈmʊnt/ lit. ‘the morning hour has gold in its mouth’
German idiom, everyday. People who get up or get started early are the ones who get the best chances.
Draft Not yet checked by a native German speaker.
How do people use Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund
?
A proverb every German child hears from a parent dragging them out of bed, and it’s still used in ads for bakeries that open at six. People say it to cheer up someone facing an early start, often with a wink or a groan. The clipped forms “Morgenstund” and “Mund” are the usual spoken version, sometimes written with an apostrophe (“Morgenstund’”), while “Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde” sounds older and more bookish.
Also said Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde
Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund
in real sentences
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Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund.
The early bird catches the worm.
Tatoeba, sentence by MUIRIEL, translation by al_ex_an_der, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Morgenstund’ hat Gold im Mund.
The early bird gets the worm.
Tatoeba, sentence by Manfredo, translation by darinmex, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund
come from?
The Redensarten-Index finds this exact wording in Michael Neander’s proverb collection of 1585, and an earlier version in Andreas Gartner’s collection (1570) where the morning hour has “die Arbeyt” (work) in its mouth instead of gold. The most widely accepted explanation, which English Wiktionary credits to the scholar Richard Jente, is that it grew out of the humanist Latin saying “aurora musis amica” (dawn is a friend of the Muses); Georg Philipp Harsdörffer translated that Latin line with this very proverb in 1642. Jente noted that 16th and 17th century versions often had bread, work or God where gold is now, and the rhyme with gold only won out in the 19th century. An older theory linking “Mund” to an Icelandic word for “hand” was rejected by the linguist Alfred Götze for lack of early evidence.
Mistakes learners make with Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund
Using it like “der frühe Vogel fängt den Wurm” to mean you have to beat the competition. English Wiktionary points out the difference: “Morgenstund” is about the morning being a good time to work at all, so it fits someone starting a shift at 5 a.m., while the early bird is about getting there before everyone else.
Other German idioms like Morgenstund hat Gold im Mund
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