What does “schickimicki” mean in German?
Was bedeutet schickimicki im Deutschen?
A2 German listening practice · Standard German · Picked for people who know a little
Schicki-Micki (also written schickimicki) is a playful, slightly mocking German word for people, places, or things that are flashy, posh, and obviously trying to look expensive. It comes from schick (“chic, smart”) doubled into a sing-song rhyme, and that reduplication is what gives it the teasing tone. A Schickimicki-Restaurant isn’t just nice. It’s where people go to be seen and to show how much money they have.
In the clip the narrator points to Schicki-Micki spots in cities like Munich or the Swiss resort of Zermatt, where everything is “viel zu teuer” on purpose. Germans almost never use the word as a straight compliment. It carries a wink, the same eye-roll English speakers put into “bougie” or “fancy-schmancy,” which is itself the same rhyming mockery.
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Harder words in this video
These words are harder than A2. Here is what they mean.
Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-DE 2011 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸In Munich, around posh streets like Maximilianstraße and the suburb of Grünwald
- ▸At Alpine luxury resorts like Zermatt, St. Moritz, and Kitzbühel
- ▸On German reality TV such as Die Geissens and Goodbye Deutschland
- ▸In German lifestyle and gossip magazines like Bunte and Gala
- ▸Whenever a German gently mocks somewhere as “too fancy for its own good”