Gevoelstemperatuur

wind chill, chill factor Iconspeaker_3
[noun] Gevoelstemperatuur
[de ge-voels-tem-pe-ra-tuur, de ge-voels-tem-pe-ra-tu-ren]

"Gevoelstemperatuur" is composed of "gevoel" and "temperatuur" (connected by an 's'), which respectively translate to "feeling" and "temperature". The "gevoelstemperatuur" is the (outside) temperature that is perceived by people under influence of the wind. The "gevoelstemperatuur" is lower than the actual temperature. In English, this phenomenon is called 'wind chill'.

Sometimes, "gevoelstemperatuur" is used to qualify the atmosphere in a room or among people, see the Examples.

Examples:
– "Door de wind kan de gevoelstemperatuur het vriespunt bereiken." 
("Because of wind chill, it may feel like the temperature reaches freezing point.")

– "Het vriest dat het kraakt!" – "Dat valt wel mee, de gevoelstemperatuur is gewoon heel laag door de wind." 
("It freezes really hard!" – "It's not so bad, there's just a high chill factor because of the wind.")

– "Frank is vorige week vreemdgegaan, de gevoelstemperatuur thuis is nu tot onder het vriespunt gedaald…" 
("Frank cheated on his wife last week, the temperature at home has dropped below zero now…")

Expressions:
– "Het vriest dat het kraakt": it freezes really hard / there is a sharp frost, very cold (while frosty). Lit.: "it freezes that it cracks".

Related words:
– Gevoel: feeling(s) [noun] [het gevoel, de gevoelens].

Example:
– "Mijn gevoel voor jou is alleen maar sterker geworden…ik hou van jou!"
("My feelings for you have only become stronger…I love you!")

– Temperatuur: temperature [noun] [de temperatuur, de temperaturen].

Extra:
The Dutch measure temperature in degrees Celsius. The "vriespunt" lies at 0 (zero) degrees Celsius (that's 32 degrees Fahrenheit). The "kookpunt" lies at 100 degrees Celsius (that's 212 degrees Fahrenheit). Click here to go to the website of the The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI), where you can convert from Celsius to Fahrenheit, or even better: convert from 'normal' temperature to "gevoelstemperatuur"!

5 thoughts on “Gevoelstemperatuur

  1. …of beter gezegd, why are not ‘de gevoelS’ or ‘de gevoelEN’ the plural of ‘het gevoel’? Is ‘de gevoelENS’ a reinforced plural, a bit more plural than the single plural? Where’s the trick?

  2. Hallo gevoelige lezer – apologies for the late reply 🙂 the truth is, I have not been able to find the answer. So: we don’t know why the plural ending is -ens.
    Btw, in the example that Marc gave you can also use the plural ‘mijn gevoelens zijn’.
    If I come across the reason for the ending -ens, I’ll be sure to share it on the blog.

  3. Hallo Sander, the only thing I can think of is that ‘het gevoel’ has no own plural and borrows it from ‘het gevoelen’ — that is from the verb’s infinitive. It makes sort of sense, but are you aware of any other similar cases?

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