Breakdown of Die Feiglinge fliehen aus der Stadt.
aus
from / out of (made of)
die Stadt
the city
fliehen
to flee, to escape
der Feigling
the coward
Questions & Answers about Die Feiglinge fliehen aus der Stadt.
How can I easily remember the gender and plural of words like Feiglinge?
Where does the word Feigling come from?
It comes from the adjective feige, which means cowardly. The suffix -ling is a very handy tool in German used to turn an adjective or a verb stem into a noun that describes a person with that specific trait.
Is there a trick to distinguishing fliehen from fliegen?
They look similar but mean different things. fliehen means to flee or escape, which is what the cowards are doing here. fliegen means to fly. A good way to keep them straight is to remember their past participles are also just one letter apart: ist geflohen for fled, and ist geflogen for flew.
Why use the dative phrase aus der Stadt instead of von der Stadt?
You use aus when you are physically moving out from inside an enclosed space or a defined boundary, like a room or a city. If you used von, it would simply imply moving away from the general direction or vicinity of the city, rather than escaping from within its walls.