What does “Staubsauger” mean in German?

Staubsauger is German being wonderfully literal: Staub (dust) plus Sauger (sucker) — a dust-sucker. German loves naming machines by precisely what they do. A fridge is a Kühlschrank (cool-cupboard), a TV a Fernseher (far-seer), and the vacuum a dust-sucker. Once you hear the pattern, half the appliance aisle explains itself and those long compound words stop looking scary.

The matching verb is staubsaugen, “to vacuum” — your model form is ich staubsauge (“I vacuum”). You can also see its two halves working on their own in Staub saugen (“to suck dust”), which is exactly how the compound was built. The clip assembles it slowly — saugen (to suck), der Staub (the dust) — so you feel the word come together from its two plain parts.