Word of the Day

: December 27, 2009

Sturm und Drang

noun shtoorm-unt-DRAHNG

What It Means

: turmoil

Sturm und Drang in Context

The new film deftly captures the Sturm und Drang of growing up as it chronicles the turbulent lives of two teens in postwar Germany.

Did You Know?

“Sturm und Drang” comes from German, where it literally means “storm and stress.” Although it’s now a generic synonym of “turmoil,” the term was originally used in English to identify a late 18th-century German literary movement whose works were filled with rousing action and high emotionalism, and often dealt with an individual rebelling against the injustices of society. The movement took its name from the 1776 play Sturm und Drang, a work by one of its proponents, dramatist and novelist Friedrich von Klinger. Although the literary movement was well known in Germany in the late 1700s, the term “Sturm und Drang” didn’t appear in English prose until the mid-1800s.