Etymologically
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Monat

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈmoːnat/, /ˈmoːˌnaːt/[1]

Forms

Monat m or n (genitive Monates or Monats, plural Monate)[1] Middle High German and Early New High German also used the word as a neuter.[2][3] The change of ā to ō before /n/ is Middle High German, as in mōnōt beside mānōt.[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German mānōt, inherited from Old High German mānōd, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *mānōþ, inherited from Proto-Germanic *mēnōþs.[5][1][6] The same word is Gothic 𐌼𐌴𐌽𐍉𐌸𐍃 (mēnōþs), Old Norse mánaðr, Old English mōnaþ, Old Frisian mōnath and Old Saxon mānuth, and today Dutch maand, English month and Swedish månad.[5][4][6]

Kluge explains that the word originally meant both “moon” and “month”, since months were counted by the moon's phases.[5] In the singular the final consonant of the stem stood at the end of the word and was lost, which gave Mond (whose final dental is secondary), while in the plural, used only for “month”, it was kept.[5] Its closest relative outside Germanic is Lithuanian mė́nuo (“moon, month”); a shorter stem underlies Sanskrit मास् (mā́s, “moon, month”), Latin mēnsis (“month”), Ancient Greek μήν (mḗn, “month”), Old Irish mí and Welsh mis, and an extended form Old Church Slavonic мѣсѧць (měsęcĭ, “moon, month”).[5] The reconstructed form is Proto-Indo-European *mēnōt-, or Proto-Indo-European *meh₁n-ot-.[4][6] It is perhaps further related to the root Proto-Indo-European *mē- (“to measure”), as the moon was the measurer of time, but Kluge leaves this open.[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German mānōd is first recorded in glosses of 765, and then in the Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, meaning “month”.[7][8] The compound mānōdsioh “moonstruck, lunatic” (9th century) shows that it could still mean “moon”.[4][9]

Semantic evolution

In Germanic times a month was the span between one full moon and the next, used to tell time but not to divide the year; the division of the year into twelve months and reckoning by them were taken over from the Roman calendar.[9][4] The sense “moon” survived into Early New High German and in Bavarian and Carinthian dialect, where das Mânet could mean the moon.[3][10] A popular reckoning of a month as four weeks, which gives thirteen months to the year, is also recorded.[10]

In the Early New High German period the word also named the months in which the Pope claimed the right to fill church offices.[3] The adjective monatlich, Old High German mānōdlīh (10th–11th century), was used from the 17th century for menstruation, monatliche Zeit (1654).[4][11]

Timeline

  • 765 – Old High German mānōd appears in glosses.[7]
  • 9th century – mānōdsioh “moonstruck” is recorded.[4]
  • 10th–11th century – The adjective mānōdlīh “monthly” is recorded.[4]
  • 1654 – monatliche Zeit is used for menstruation.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A month, one of the twelve parts of the year: im Monat März.[12][1]
  2. A period of about thirty days: das Kind ist sieben Monate alt.[12][1]
  3. (astronomy) The period between two new moons, a lunar month.[1]

Word family

  • monatlich
  • monatelang
  • Monatsende
  • Monatsgehalt
  • Heumonat
  • Wintermonat
  • Mondmonat
  • Vormonat
  • Mond
  • Semester
  • English month

Usage notes

Im vierten Monat sein is colloquial for being four months pregnant.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  3. ^ a b c Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  4. ^ 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
  5. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 631
  6. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 215
  9. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 571
  10. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 2483
  11. ^ a b Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  12. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag