Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
Lower Saxony

Lower Saxony

1 3.9
A large state in northwestern Germany with important industry and culture
  • proper noun
: Baja Sajonia
  • Current VW-Lichtblick plans are to install 200,000 units by 2018 in the states of Lower Saxony, Hamburg, and Bremen.

Examples

  • The famous Hannover Fair is held annually in Lower Saxony, attracting visitors from around the world.

  • She is an Oldenburg horse, a warmblood horse breed from the northwestern corner of Lower Saxony.

    Blog text (26)

  • Many tourists visit Lower Saxony to explore its beautiful landscapes and historic towns.

  • (VW's biggest shareholder is the state of Lower Saxony.)

Surface Forms

Lower Saxony main

Morphology

lower + Saxony

The name is compositionally built from 'lower' (a relative geographic qualifier) + 'Saxony' (a place name), so a B1 learner who knows both words will infer it denotes a region/state associated with Saxony located in a 'lower' (relative) position. This type of place-name formation (e.g. Lower Egypt, Upper Austria) is cross-linguistically common, making the meaning directly derivable from the constituents.

Etymology

Lower Saxony comes from the early German people called the Saxons and the word Lower, which here means the low or downstream land by the North Sea. So Lower Saxony literally means 'the low land of the Saxons', and that is why it is the name of the state in northwestern Germany.