Etymologically
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Dollar

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈdɔlaʁ/, [ˈdɔlaʁ], [ˈdɔlaɐ̯][1]

Forms

Dollar m (genitive Dollars or Dollar, plural Dollars or Dollar)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English dollar, the American English name of the currency.[2][3][4][5] Pfeifer dates the borrowing to the 18th century, Duden to the 19th.[3][4][6] The English word goes back to Low German dāler, the same word as Taler.[2][4] Pfeifer traces it through Middle Dutch daelder or daeler to Middle Low German dāler, and notes that the English forms were at first spelt with ⟨a⟩, the spelling with ⟨o⟩ appearing about 1600.[3] Wiktionary also passes through early modern Dutch.[1]

That coin name is short for Joachimstaler, a silver coin minted from 1518 from the silver of the mines at Sankt Joachimsthal, now Jáchymov, in Bohemia.[3][2][7] Wahrig gives the years of that coinage as 1519 to 1528.[8] It also notes that the dollar sign comes from the Spanish-Mexican peso, called the “Spanish dollar” in English, which may have been the direct model when the United States adopted the name in the late 18th century.[8] The German words are thus doublets.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Grimms' revised dictionary has its first example from 1806, of workers who still received ten dollars a month in cash.[5] It meant the currency unit of the United States.[5]

Semantic evolution

Besides the currency of the United States, the word names that of other countries such as Canada and Australia, and a single dollar coin or note.[5][9][4] The plural was at first Dollars; after numbers the form without an ending is now usual, as with measures and quantities (30 Dollar).[5][9] In nuclear engineering a Dollar is also a unit of the reactivity of a reactor.[5] Hungarian took the word as dollár in 1753.[10]

Timeline

  • 1518 – The Joachimstaler is first minted in Bohemia.[3][7]
  • About 1600 – English has the form dollar.[3]
  • 1753 – Hungarian dollár is recorded.[10]
  • 1806 – First example of Dollar in German.[5]
  • 1852 – Dollar is used of a single coin.[5]
  • 1972 – Dollar is recorded as a unit of reactor reactivity.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The currency unit of the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries, divided into 100 cents; sign $: Das Buch kostet zwanzig Dollar.[9][11][1]
  2. A single dollar coin or banknote.[5]
  3. (nuclear engineering) A unit of reactivity of a nuclear reactor.[5]
  • Taler
  • Joachimstaler

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 905
  3. ^ a b c d e f Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  4. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 227
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Neubearbeitung (1965–2018), ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 9 vols. (A–F), Leipzig / Stuttgart: Hirzel, p. 6, 1220
  6. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
  7. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  8. ^ a b Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  9. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  10. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  11. ^ Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag