Whether you’re weighing apples or exchanging money for your trip to London, the German word Pfund will come up. It’s about weight, currency—and sometimes, muscle.

The noun Pfund means pound, and it refers to both the unit of weight and the British currency. It’s one of the 1000 most frequently used nouns in German, especially in cooking, finance, and everyday speech.

It’s a neuter noun, so we say das Pfund.

Pronunciation

Pfund is pronounced [pfuhnt], and yes, that “pf” combo at the start is very German.

• Start with a soft puff of air, like blowing out a candle (p) and immediately follow it with f—like “pfff…”
• Then finish it off with “und”, rhyming with “bund.”

It may feel tricky at first, but once you get the “pf” combo, it’s a punchy, satisfying word.

Example sentences:

• Ich hätte gern ein Pfund Trauben, bitte.
  I’d like a pound of grapes, please.
• Das kostet zehn Pfund.
  That costs ten pounds. (British currency)

Nuance and usage tips

Pfund has two common meanings:

1. Weight – equal to 500 grams in modern German usage.
   While the English pound is about 453 grams, the German Pfund is standardized at 500g for simplicity in shops and recipes.
   You’ll often hear it at markets and in older recipes:
   • ein halbes Pfund Butter – half a pound of butter
2. Currency – the British Pound Sterling
   • ein Pfund – one pound (£1)
   • Pfund Sterling – Pound Sterling (formal)
   • Ich muss meine Euro in Pfund umtauschen. – I have to exchange my euros for pounds.

Rarely, Pfund can also appear in figurative expressions:

• ein echtes Pfund Kerle – a real hunk / big guy (slangy and old-fashioned)

There’s no true antonym, but in weight contexts, you might contrast it with Gramm or Kilogramm; in currency contexts, Euro (masculine, der Euro) is the modern German counterpart.

Grammatical case examples:

• Nominative: Das Pfund ist in Deutschland 500 Gramm.
  The pound in Germany equals 500 grams.
• Accusative: Ich nehme das Pfund Hackfleisch.
  I’ll take the pound of ground meat.
• Dative: Mit dem Pfund konnte ich kaum etwas kaufen.
  With the pound, I could barely buy anything.
• Genitive: Wegen des Pfunds musste ich den Preis neu berechnen.
  Because of the pound, I had to recalculate the price.

Neuter case pattern: das, das, dem, des

Word variations and language tidbits

Variation Station:

• Halbpfünder – half-pounder (used in food products)
• Pfundstück – pound coin
• Pfundpreis – price per pound (less common now; Preis pro 500 Gramm is more typical)

Fun cultural note:
Germany no longer uses pounds in official measurements (since it’s not metric), but ein Pfund remains popular in casual speech and traditional recipes. At the market, it’s still totally normal to say:
“Ein Pfund Tomaten, bitte.”

📘 Duden entry: https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Pfund

🎥 Learn Pfund and the rest of the top 1000 German nouns in our free online video course:
https://deutschable.com/nouns/

Done already? Do you know how to say Text in German? Or what Veränderung means?