Minute

Forms

Minute f (genitive Minute, plural Minuten, diminutive Minütchen n or Minuterl n)^[1] Pinician's dictionary of 1516 has minut, and a 1571 source the diminutive Minütl.^[2]

Etymology

It was borrowed in the 15th century, borrowed from Medieval Latin minūta (“sixtieth of an hour”), the feminine of Latin minūtus (“made smaller, very small”), the past participle of minuō (“to make smaller”), which is related to minus (“less”).^[3][4][1] The sense comes from the phrase pars minūta prīma (“first diminished part”), the first subdivision of a quantity divisible by sixty in the sexagesimal system of Ptolemy; the second subdivision, pars minūta secunda, gave Sekunde.^[3][2][5]

The sources differ on the immediate source: Kluge and Pfeifer name Late Latin, where Pfeifer finds the sense “sixtieth part of a degree or an hour” already in Augustine, while the Duden dictionaries and Paul name Medieval Latin.^[3][4][5][6] The Grimms derive it from Late Latin minūtum (“tenth of an hour”), applied in the later Middle Ages to the smaller division taken from Arabic science.^[7] The same source gave Dutch minuut, English minute, French minute and Swedish minut.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the 15th century the word was at home among people with scholarly training, in the sense “sixtieth part of an hour”;^[7][2] Oswald von Wolkenstein lists stund, weil, die zeit, minut und quint.^[7][2] The Early New High German word could also mean “short note, memorandum”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Its spread followed that of public clocks: rare in the 14th century, they became common in the 15th, and by the 16th century almost every sizable town had a clock showing the hours divided in the modern way, which brought the word to ordinary people.^[7][4] The arithmetic books of the 16th century teach that j stunde ist sechtzigk minuten (1542).^[7]

From the end of the 18th century it was also used loosely for a very short time, a moment, as in Thümmel (1791).^[2][4][6] Philipp von Zesen proposed the German replacement Zeitblick, which did not catch on.^[2] The German word passed into several neighbouring languages, among them Czech and Slovene minuta and Latvian minūte.^[1]

Timeline

• 15th century – Minute is borrowed in mathematical usage.^[3][2]
• 1516 – Pinician's dictionary records minut.^[2]
• 16th century – Public clocks with minute divisions spread the word.^[4]
• 1542 – An arithmetic book states that an hour has sixty minutes.^[7]
• 1791 – Thümmel uses Minute for “a moment”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A minute, the sixtieth part of an hour: Der Bus kommt in zehn Minuten.^[9][1]
2. A moment, a short time: Warte bitte eine Minute!;^[9] in letzter Minute, at the last moment.^[9]
3. (mathematics) The sixtieth part of a degree of arc.^[9][1]

Word family

• Minutenzeiger
• minutenlang
• Minütchen

Related words

• Sekunde
• minus
• English minute

Usage notes

Fünf Minuten vor zwölf “five minutes to twelve” means at the last possible moment.^[9] The diminutive is Minütchen, in Austria also Minuterl.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Schulz, Hans; Basler, Otto, et al. (1913–1988), Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch, 7 vols., Strasbourg / Berlin: Trübner / De Gruyter; 2nd ed., ed. Gerhard Strauß et al. (1995–), Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; via OWID, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache
3. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 625
4. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 565
6. ^ a b Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
7. ^ a b c d e f Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 2246
8. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
9. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag