German nouns ending in -um

Latin words in -um are neuter: das Museum, das Zentrum.

German words in -aum are not in this group: der Baum, der Raum, der Traum.

On the 170 common nouns with this ending in the frequency list behind these rules, 94.7% take das. 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

• der Irrtum
• der Reichtum
• die Magnum

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

Examples the course uses

• das Museum
• das Zentrum
• das Datum

In this dictionary

• das Datum
• das Geburtsdatum
• das Museum
• das Praktikum
• das Visum
• der Warteraum
• das Zentrum

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