German nouns ending in -ie

-ie is feminine: die Familie, die Drogerie.

Watch out for das Knie (knee).

On the 309 common nouns with this ending in the frequency list behind these rules, 90.3% take die. We label that “almost always”. The count is from german-nouns (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0). It is not an exam pass rate.

Exceptions in this rule

• das Knie
• das Genie
• das Freie
• der Zombie
• der Junkie

Learn the exceptions as pairs. The ending is still worth using for every other noun.

Examples the course uses

• die Familie
• die Drogerie
• die Allergie

In this dictionary

• die Allergie
• die Drogerie
• die Familie
• das Knie
• die Kopie
• die Serie

Back to the article dictionary · Train der, die and das