Etymologically
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Uhr

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Pronunciation

  • /uːr/, [ʔuːɐ̯][1]

Forms

Uhr f (genitive Uhr, plural Uhren)[1] Until the 16th century the spelling wavered between hore, ore and ure.[2] Luther used the Latin form hora.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German ūre (“hour”), borrowed from Middle Low German ūre (“hour”), from Middle Dutch ure, from Old French (h)ore, from Latin hōra (“time, hour”), from Ancient Greek ὥρα (hṓra, “season, hour”).[4][3][1] The word reached German in the 14th century on the Lower Rhine and spread from there over the whole German-speaking area.[5][2] Beside it, Middle High German had hōre “canonical hour”, taken directly from Latin, and until the 16th century forms with and without the Latin /h/ competed.[3][2]

The Greek word is related by ablaut to Jahr,[4][3][5] and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *yeh₁- (“year, season”).[1] The same Old French word gave English hour, and the Romance descendants of the Latin word include French heure, Italian ora and Spanish hora.[3][1]

The word was borrowed after the long /uː/ of Middle High German had become a diphthong in most dialects, so it kept its /uː/; a diphthongized form ⟨auer⟩ occurs only in some dialects.[1][2] The sense “timepiece” arose by metonymy from “hour”, first in the compound ōrglocke (“hour bell”), and is not found in the related languages.[4][1] It replaced the older ōrlei, orlei “clock”, from hōrologium.[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record is from Frankfurt in 1348, in the compound uhrglocke “hour bell”, and the word first meant “hour”.[2][4] In Middle High German ūr meant both “hour” and “clock”.[7]

Semantic evolution

From the 15th century Uhr named the device for measuring time, which is now its main sense.[6][3] The old meaning “hour” survives in telling the time: es ist zwei Uhr “it is two o'clock”, wie viel Uhr ist es? “what time is it?”.[6][5] In this use the word does not take a plural ending.[8] Compounds such as Sanduhr, Sonnenuhr, Wasseruhr and Taschenuhr go back to Early New High German.[6]

From Middle Low German the word also passed into the Scandinavian languages.[2] Slovene and Serbo-Croatian borrowed it as ura.[1]

Timeline

  • 12th century – The older word orlei “clock” is found in an Old High German gloss manuscript.[9][3]
  • 1348 – First record, in Frankfurt, in the compound uhrglocke.[2]
  • 1405 – Early New High German orglucke “hour bell”.[3]
  • 15th century – Uhr names the device for measuring time.[6][3]
  • 1424 – A text asks wie vil hor hat ez geschlagen? (“how many hours has it struck?”).[2]
  • Late 16th century – The forms Ur(e), Uhr(e) win out over Hore.[3][2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A clock or watch: an instrument that shows the time.[10][1]
  2. (invariable, after a number) o'clock: the hour of the day.[1][11]
  3. (in compounds) A meter for water or gas.[1][11]

Word family

  • Uhrmacher
  • Uhrwerk
  • Uhrzeit
  • Armbanduhr
  • Sanduhr
  • Sonnenuhr
  • Taschenuhr

Usage notes

Wissen, was die Uhr geschlagen hat is to know how things really stand.[10][6] Jemandes Uhr ist abgelaufen means that someone must die, or must give up a post.[10] Irgendwo gehen die Uhren anders says that other standards apply in a place.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 23, 731
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 939
  5. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  6. ^ a b c d e f Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  11. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org