Etymologically
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Punkt

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Pronunciation

  • /pʊŋ(k)t/, [pʊŋkt], [pʊŋt][1]

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
  • 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