Zodiac Signs in German: All 12 Names, and the Article Each One Takes

Learning the zodiac signs in German means learning two little words alongside them: der and die. German nouns carry gender, so there is no such thing as knowing the word for Libra without also knowing that it is die Waage and not der Waage. Get the article wrong and a German speaker hears it immediately.

So this guide is organised by gender rather than by astrological order. Eight signs are masculine, two are feminine, and two are plural — which is a far more useful way to memorise them than running Aries to Pisces.

All 12 Zodiac Signs in German

Sternzeichen or Tierkreiszeichen?

Both words exist and they are not quite interchangeable. Sternzeichen is “star sign” and it is what people say — in conversation, in magazine headlines, on dating profiles. Tierkreiszeichen is the technical term, literally “animal-circle sign”, and it is what an astrologer or an encyclopaedia uses.

If you are writing for a German audience, use Sternzeichen. If you are translating something formal or astronomical, Tierkreiszeichen is the safer register. Searching in German, incidentally, Sternzeichen is by a wide margin the more common query.

The Eight Masculine German Zodiac Signs (der)

Aries in German: der Widder

A ram. The word is unrelated to English “ram” but related, distantly, to English “wether”. German kept the animal and left the Latin to the astronomers. See the Aries profile.

Taurus in German: der Stier

A bull, and the same word as English “steer” — though English narrowed its version to mean a castrated animal while German kept the intact bull. Note the pronunciation: German st- at the start of a word becomes “sht”. Stier is “SHTEER”, never “STEER”. This trips up almost every English speaker. More in the Taurus profile.

Cancer in German: der Krebs

German went with a crab rather than the crayfish its northern neighbours chose. Krebs also means cancer the disease, exactly as in English, and the overlap is much more present in German than the Danish or Swedish equivalents — which means German horoscope writers tend to handle Cancer season with slightly more care. Read the Cancer profile.

Leo in German: der Löwe

From Latin leo, one of the very few borrowings in the German list. The final -e is pronounced, as a soft “uh”: “LÖ-vuh”, two syllables. See the Leo profile.

Scorpio in German: der Skorpion

A loanword, for the usual reason: no German-speaking region has native scorpions worth naming. Stress falls on the last syllable, “skor-pee-OHN”, which is unusual for German and a reliable marker of a borrowed word. See the Scorpio profile.

Sagittarius in German: der Schütze

A shooter or marksman, from schießen, “to shoot”. No bow in the name at all. The word has a second life in German football commentary, where a Torschütze is a goalscorer — so German Sagittarius shares its name with the most celebrated role on the pitch. See the Sagittarius profile.

Capricorn in German: der Steinbock

Stein (stone) plus Bock (buck): the alpine ibex, an animal that actually lives in the German-speaking Alps and nearly went extinct there in the nineteenth century. The Latin sea-goat, half goat and half fish, does not survive in the German name. Read the Capricorn profile.

Aquarius in German: der Wassermann

“Water man”. In German folklore a Wassermann is also a water spirit — a merman, the kind that lures people into rivers — so the word carries a faint mythological shadow that the Latin Aquarius, a plain water-carrier, does not. See the Aquarius profile.

The Two Feminine German Star Signs (die)

Virgo in German: die Jungfrau

Literally “young woman”, and it covers both maiden and virgin depending on context. Every German speaker also knows it as a mountain: the Jungfrau in the Bernese Alps is one of the most photographed peaks in Switzerland. More in the Virgo profile.

Libra in German: die Waage

A set of scales, and also the ordinary word for any weighing device, including the one in your bathroom. Two syllables — “VAH-guh” — and the double a is long. The Libra profile covers the sign.

The Two Plural German Signs (die)

These two behave differently from the rest, and not only in their article. Because they are plural, a German speaker describing themselves uses a singular form that never appears in the sign name.

Gemini in German: die Zwillinge

The sign is die Zwillinge, twins. But one person is ein Zwilling: “Ich bin Zwilling.” Three syllables, and the z is a “ts” sound — “TSVIL-ing-uh”. The Gemini profile has more.

Pisces in German: die Fische

The sign is die Fische, fishes. One person is ein Fisch: “Ich bin Fisch.” See the Pisces profile.

How Germans Actually State Their Zodiac Signs in German

Here is the detail that most guides miss. In English you say “I’m a Leo”, with an article. German normally drops it:

• Ich bin Löwe. — I’m a Leo. (Most idiomatic.)
• Ich bin ein Löwe. — Also heard, also correct, slightly more emphatic.
• Mein Sternzeichen ist Löwe. — My star sign is Leo.
• Was ist dein Sternzeichen? — What’s your star sign?
• Ich bin im Zeichen des Steinbocks geboren. — I was born under the sign of Capricorn.
• Typisch Skorpion! — Typical Scorpio!

Notice that last construction. Des Steinbocks is genitive, and most masculine signs add an -s there: des Widders, des Stiers, des Löwen (this one takes -n). Feminine signs do not change: der Waage, der Jungfrau.

The Rest of the German Astrology Vocabulary

One warning on that last row. Wasserzeichen means “water sign” in astrology, but in every other context it means a watermark — the thing in a banknote. German speakers will read it correctly from context, but a machine translation will not.

Germany, Austria and Switzerland

All twelve names are identical across the three main German-speaking countries. There is no Austrian or Swiss variant to worry about, which makes German unusually easy to localise compared with Portuguese or Norwegian.

Horoskop columns run in Bild, in the free commuter papers, and in every women’s weekly from Brigitte down. German astrology writing sits somewhere between the British wink and the earnestness you find in Latin America — drier than Brazil, warmer than Denmark.

Frequently Asked Questions

Zodiac Signs in German and Its Neighbouring Languages

German and Dutch are close relatives and their sign lists show it — see the zodiac signs in Dutch, where Steenbok and Waterman are nearly identical but Cancer becomes a lobster. The Scandinavian languages translated the same images again with their own vocabulary: Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. For the opposite approach entirely, the zodiac signs in Italian barely moved from the Latin.

All ten languages: zodiac signs in different languages.