The der/die/das rules / Nouns ending in -ei

Rule for feminine · die

Nouns ending in -ei

-ei → die · 0.3% of nouns

The rule, in plain language

Nouns ending in -ei are almost always feminine, like Polizei (police) or Partei (party) - and compounds with the same ending, such as Bundespolizei (federal police), follow the same pattern. It's a rare rule, covering only about 0.3% of the frequent nouns in our set, but a handy one for words about institutions and organizations. Watch out for Ei (egg) though - it happens to end in -ei too, but it's neuter (das Ei), so don't let the matching ending fool you.

In the A1-B1 vocabulary of the Genau course, this rule covers 6 words (0.3%) and has 1 exceptions - all listed below.

Representative examples

The exceptions

These contradict the rule - learn them as-is:

All course words that follow this rule

Rules stick through practice. In the Genau app you train exactly this rule on its own words, with the GENAU! stamp on every correct answer - free, offline, no account. Coming soon to the App Store.