Etymologically
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Spur

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Pronunciation

  • /ʃpuːr/, [ʃpu(ː)ɐ̯][1]

Forms

Spur f (genitive Spur, plural Spuren)[1] The word was at first neuter (Old High German spor); Middle High German developed feminine forms, which prevailed in the 16th century.[2] The EWA, however, sees no change of gender: it takes the feminine spur for a separate, younger formation that replaced spor.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German spur, inherited from Old High German spor, inherited from Proto-Germanic *spurą (“track”).[4][2][1] The same word is Old Norse spor, Old English spor, Middle Low German spōr and Middle Dutch spor, and today Dutch spoor, Swedish spår and Icelandic spor.[4][2] It is a derivative of the Germanic verb found in Old High German spurnan (“to kick, spur”), sporna (“to tread, kick away”) and spurnan (“to kick, scorn”), so it originally meant “a tread, a footprint”.[4][5] The Sporn (spur) is named from the same verb.[6]

The root is Proto-Indo-European *sperH- (“to kick, trample”),[1] also in Sanskrit स्फुरति (sphuráti, “kicks back”), Ancient Greek ἀσπαίρω (aspaírō, “I twitch, struggle”), Lithuanian spirti (“to kick backwards”) and Latin spernō (“to push away, scorn”).[6][5] Pfeifer and Duden give it the sense “to twitch, kick out with the foot, struggle”, and Duden also connects the family of springen.[2][5]

The form with ⟨u⟩ took its vowel from the verb Old High German spurien (“to follow a track”), the ancestor of spüren.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German spor is recorded from the end of the 8th century in the Abrogans and other glosses, and in the Murbach Hymns, the Benedictine Rule, Otfrid, Notker and Williram, meaning “track, trail, step, foot, sign”, glossing Latin vestigium.[3][8][9]

Semantic evolution

Spur was first a hunting word for the print left by a foot, and phrases such as auf die Spur bringen refer to the hunting dog.[2][5] Phrases such as auf der Spur sein and auf die Spur kommen are recorded by Stieler, and die Spur verlieren by Kramer.[10] The figurative sense “a sign left behind” developed early, and in New High German it joined the idea of something barely noticeable: keine Spur “not a trace”, recorded with spurlos “without trace” from the 18th century.[2][5] From the 18th century the general sense “mark, sign of an existence” is common, as in the traces of age or of a former devastation, and in police work the clue that helps solve a crime.[10]

The word also named the ruts of carts on a road.[5] From the 18th century it meant the distance between the wheels of a vehicle, and in the 19th century came Spurweite for the gauge of a railway, and the adjective großspurig “boastful”.[10][2][5] Later it was used for the lane of a road and the track on a magnetic tape.[10] The verb spuren “to keep in the track” was said of carts at the beginning of the 19th century and then colloquially for “to toe the line”; in the 20th century it also means laying a ski track.[5][2]

Timeline

  • Late 8th century – Old High German spor appears in the Abrogans glosses.[3]
  • First half of the 13th century – The form spur is recorded in a Bavarian gloss.[7]
  • 16th century – Feminine forms prevail.[2]
  • 18th century – keine Spur, spurlos and the technical sense “track width of a vehicle” are recorded.[2][10]
  • 19th century – Spurweite (railway gauge), großspurig and the verb spuren appear.[2][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A track or trail: a line of prints or marks left on the ground by a person, animal or vehicle.[11][1]
  2. (skiing) A cross-country ski track, a Loipe.[11]
  3. (hunting) The track of certain animals, especially small game, as distinct from a Fährte.[11]
  4. A trace, sign or mark left behind; a clue to a crime.[11][1]
  5. A lane of a road.[11][1]
  6. A track on a magnetic tape or other data medium.[11][1]
  7. (technology) Track width, gauge.[11]
  8. (motoring) The alignment of the wheels; also the line a vehicle keeps when driven.[11]
  9. A tiny amount, a touch: eine Spur Zimt “a hint of cinnamon”.[11][1]
  10. (mathematics) The trace of a square matrix.[1][12]

Word family

  • spuren
  • spurlos
  • großspurig
  • Spurweite
  • spüren
  • Sporn
  • English spoor

Usage notes

Jemandem auf die Spur kommen is to find someone out, and einer Sache auf die Spur kommen to discover what lies behind something; a heiße Spur is a promising lead.[11] Colloquially keine Spur or nicht die Spur means “not at all”.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 8, 814
  4. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 873
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  6. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 870
  7. ^ a b Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 8, 920
  8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 306
  9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  12. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org