Punkt

Forms

Punkt m (genitive Punktes or Punkts, plural Punkte, diminutive Pünktchen n or Pünktlein n or Punkterl n)^[1] Older forms include punt, the weak puncte and an umlauted plural pünt (1469); the neuter gender is rare.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German punct, inherited from Old High German puncto, borrowed from Late Latin pūnctus, which stands for classical Latin pūnctum (“point; prick”), the neuter past participle of pungō (“to prick”).^[3][4][5] The Latin word first meant something pricked in, a mark made with the stylus on a wax tablet, and then a section of a text, a dot on a die, the smallest quantity and a moment.^[4][6] The Latin form itself is kept in the exclamation Punktum.^[4]

Other languages have the word without the /k/: French point, English point and Dutch punt.^[3][2] bunt, Pointe, Punze and Spund go back to the same Latin form.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German puncto “point” occurs in a gloss in a 12th-century manuscript.^[7][4] Middle High German puncte and punct appear around 1200 and in the 13th century, meaning “point, centre, moment, circumstance, article, agreement”.^[8][4] Kluge dates the word to the 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Paul describes the first sense as a mark made by pricking, then any small round spot; the idea of a point without extent came with scholarship, and the mathematical sense is recorded at the beginning of the 15th century.^[9] As a punctuation mark ending a sentence it appears in Niklas von Wyle (1462).^[9] Already in Latin the word meant “section of a document”.^[9] From this, Punkt came to mean any single item among several matters, an agenda item or a point of discussion.^[9][4]

It was also transferred to time, “moment”, whence Zeitpunkt (17th century).^[4] Der springende Punkt is a loan translation of punctum saliens, Aristotle's moving spot in an incubated egg from which the heart develops; it came to mean the decisive point.^[5][9] Der tote Punkt comes from engineering, where it is the position in which connecting rod and crank form a straight line.^[5] In the 1920s and 1930s sports language formed compounds such as Punktsieg “win on points”.^[10] Hungarian pont (1513) was borrowed from German.^[11][1]

Timeline

• 12th century – Old High German puncto occurs in a manuscript gloss.^[7][4]
• Early 15th century – The mathematical sense is recorded.^[9]
• 1462 – Niklas von Wyle uses Punkt for the full stop.^[9]
• 15th century – pünktlich appears, first in the sense “careful, precise”.^[4]
• 1513 – Hungarian pont is recorded.^[11]
• 17th century – Zeitpunkt appears.^[4]
• 18th century – Punktum “that's that” is recorded.^[4]
• 1929 – Punktsieg appears in sports language.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small round spot, a dot: ein Kleid mit weißen Punkten.^[12][1]
2. A dot as a written sign; the full stop at the end of a sentence.^[12][1]
3. A particular place or position: der höchste Punkt des Landes.^[12][1]
4. (mathematics) A point without extent.^[12]
5. A point in time, a stage: an diesem Punkt der Verhandlungen.^[12]
6. An item, topic or section: der nächste Punkt der Tagesordnung.^[12][1]
7. A unit of scoring in games and sports.^[12]
8. (printing) The typographic point, 0.376 mm.^[12]
9. (before a time) Exactly, sharp: Punkt acht Uhr.^[1]

Word family

• pünktlich
• Pünktlichkeit
• punktuell
• punktieren
• Punktum
• Zeitpunkt
• Mittelpunkt
• Standpunkt
• Höhepunkt
• Doppelpunkt
• Strichpunkt

Related words

• Interpunktion
• Akupunktur
• Kontrapunkt
• Pointe
• Spund
• bunt
• English point

Usage notes

Der springende Punkt is the crucial point, ein dunkler Punkt something dubious in someone's past, and ohne Punkt und Komma reden is to talk without stopping.^[5][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 13, 2233
3. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 732
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 660
6. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b 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
11. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag