Sturm und Drang
noun
Did you know?
Sturm und Drang comes from German, where it literally means "storm and stress." Although it’s now a generic synonym of "turmoil," the term was originally used in English to identify a late 18th-century German literary movement whose works were filled with rousing action and high emotionalism, and often dealt with an individual rebelling against the injustices of society. The movement took its name from the 1776 play Sturm und Drang, a work by one of its proponents, dramatist and novelist Friedrich von Klinger. Although the literary movement was well known in Germany in the late 1700s, the term "Sturm und Drang" didn’t appear in English prose until the mid-1800s.
Examples of Sturm und Drang in a Sentence
News Desk, Artforum, 23 Oct. 2025
Yet there has been an asymmetry between the Sturm und Drang of that operation—a midnight raid featured agents rappelling from helicopters onto a South Side apartment building—and its effect.
—Benjamin Wallace-Wells, New Yorker, 5 Oct. 2025
At the heart of the book is the recognition that almost all of the Sturm und Drang of the most destructive century in history has revolved around one place -- the Eurasian landmass -- and one issue: who controls it.
—John Hillen, National Review, 17 Apr. 2025
Of course, few movies arrive onscreen with as much cultural Sturm und Drang as director Marc Webb’s megabudget contemporization of 1937’s epochal Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
—Chris Lee, Vulture, 14 Mar. 2025
Four years after all the Sturm und Drang that followed Donald Trump's 2020 electoral loss to Joe Biden, the maestro of Mar-a-Lago is set to be inaugurated once more on Monday as president of the United States.
—Yaakov Katz, Newsweek, 17 Jan. 2025
Still, after all the Sturm und Drang surrounding Starbucks in the last few years, the best favor a CEO could do for the company and its troops is to be clear and articulate the way forward.
—Phil Wahba, Fortune, 31 Oct. 2024
The effect is meditative and moving, an urgent quietude not always found in the Sturm und Drang that attends both our contemporary poetry and our politics.
—Tomas Tranströmer, The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2024
Kate has long been a reliable pillar of the British family, showing up and smiling at every public event at which she was asked to appear, reacting to the Sturm und Drang of royal drama with an air of determined normalcy.
—Constance Grady, Vox, 6 June 2024
Cite this Entry
“Sturm und Drang.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Sturm%20und%20Drang. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.
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