Pech

Pech

1. An indigenous Amerindian language spoken in Honduras.

• Paya

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Pech terms

• EHCP, ceph, hep C

From Middle High German pech, bech, from Old High German peh, beh, from Proto-West Germanic *pik (“pitch, tar, wood resin”).

The form is unusual as it shows unshifted p-, but shifted -ch, even though the shift of initial p- to pf- occurred later than that of postvocalic -k to -ch. Theodor Frings therefore considered that the word was at first restricted to West Central German along the Rhine (which lacks the pf-shift) and only spread to Upper German slightly later when the shift was no longer active. (Middle High German pfich occurs only once in a Central German text from the 14th century and is thus probably a hypercorrection.)

• IPA^(key): /pɛç/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛç

Pech n (strong, genitive Pechs or Peches, plural Peche)

1. (usually uncountable) pitch (sticky substance)
2. (uncountable) bad luck, misfortune

   Synonym: Unglück

   Antonym: Glück

   Pech haben ― to be unlucky

   • 1983, “Ich bin müde”, Rio Reiser (lyrics), Wolgang Michels (music):

     Du denkst nach vorne, ich denk zurück. / Ich zieh das Pech an, du hast nur Glück.

     You think forward, I think back. / I attract bad luck, you have only luck.

• pekig

• → Dutch: pech
• → Hungarian: pech
• → Polish: pech
• → Serbo-Croatian: pȅh
• → Slovak: pech
• → Czech: pech

• “Pech” in Duden online
• “Pech” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

From Old High German peh, from Latin pix. Cognate with German Pech, Dutch pek, English pitch.

• IPA^(key): /pæɕ/

Pech m (uncountable)

1. glue
2. sticky tape
3. bad luck, misfortune

• pechen