überhaupt

Forms

überhaupt^[1] Luther and other writers of the 16th and 17th centuries used umlauted forms such as uberheupt; dialects have überhaupts with an adverbial ⟨s⟩.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a fusion from German über + Haupt, from the late medieval phrase Middle High German über houbet (“over the head(s)”), with the accusative of the noun.^[4][5][3] It began as a term of the cattle trade: to buy or sell in this way was to deal in a lump sum, without counting the single animals, the “heads”.^[4][6][5] It was then generalised to legal and business dealings where a lump sum stood against an itemised account.^[4]

The present sense “in general” was at first expressed by überall, which überhaupt displaced in this use in the 18th century.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kluge dates the word to the 14th century and Pfeifer to the 15th.^[4][5] In Middle High German the phrase also had a local sense, as in über houbet vehten “to fight overhead”, that is, against the current.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Until the 18th century überhaupt kaufen meant to buy goods as a whole lot, as Stieler records in 1691, and the word meant “altogether, in total”: Goethe writes in a letter of 1815 Wir zahlen dafür überhaupt 48 Thlr. (“we pay 48 thalers for it altogether”).^[3][5] Placed after a noun it came to mean “as such, in general”, as in Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1787).^[3]

In the 18th century it became general and was used to strengthen negations, überhaupt nicht “not at all”;^[5][2] as a particle in questions (“actually, at all”) Pfeifer dates it to the end of the 17th century.^[5] The philosophical sense passed into English in 1875, in phrases such as Bewusstsein überhaupt, and the word was borrowed into Dutch in the early 20th century.^[7][1]

Timeline

• 14th century – First record, according to Kluge.^[4]
• 15th century – First record, according to Pfeifer.^[5]
• 1691 – Stieler records überhaupt kaufen “to buy in bulk”.^[3]
• End of the 17th century – Used as a particle in questions.^[5]
• 1787 – Kant uses it after a noun, “as such”.^[3]
• 18th century – überhaupt nicht “not at all”; the word displaces überall in the sense “in general”.^[5][4]
• 1875 – Borrowed into English in philosophical use.^[7]

Meanings

Adverb

1. In general, on the whole: Er ist überhaupt selten pünktlich.^[8][1]
2. With a negation: at all: Das habe ich überhaupt nicht gewusst.^[8][1]
3. With und: besides, apart from that.^[8]
4. Especially: Man sollte, überhaupt im Winter, warme Schuhe tragen.^[8]

Particle

1. In questions: actually, at all: Weißt du überhaupt, wie spät es ist?^[8][1]

Related words

• über
• Haupt
• überall

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 23, 302
3. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
4. ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 938
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
6. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 883
7. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
8. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag