Vorjahr

Forms

Vorjahr n (genitive Vorjahres or Vorjahrs, plural Vorjahre)^[1]

Etymology

It is a compound from German vor- (“before”) + Jahr (“year”).^[1][2] The word appears first in Low German, with two senses: Middle Low German vȫrjâr meant both “an earlier year, the previous year” and “spring”.^[3][4][5] Dutch voorjaar still means “spring”.^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the older language the word mostly meant the beginning of the year, that is spring, since the year was once reckoned from the spring; a record of 1577 uses it of the time between Easter and Whitsun.^[5][6] Schottel (1663) and Stieler gloss it as the first part of the year, spring.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Adelung (1793) still knew only the sense “spring”, which he described as Low German, and Campe did not record “the previous year” either.^[6][5] That sense appears in the standard language in Pestalozzi (1819) and became the usual one, while “spring” remained in Low German dialects and in the Baltic provinces.^[5] The plural first meant “earlier years” in general, as in Schupp (1663), but now refers only to the years just past.^[5]

Timeline

• 1577 – Vorjahr names the time between Easter and Whitsun.^[5]
• 1663 – Schottel records the sense “spring”, and Schupp uses the plural for earlier years.^[5]
• 1793 – Adelung records only the regional sense “spring”.^[6]
• 1819 – Pestalozzi uses it for the previous year.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The previous year: Der Umsatz stieg gegenüber dem Vorjahr um fünf Prozent.^[7][1]
2. (obsolete, regional) Spring; a synonym of Frühjahr.^[1][6]

Word family

• Vorjahresquartal
• Vorjahreszeitraum
• vorjährig

Related words

• Jahr
• Dutch voorjaar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
3. ^ Schiller, Karl; Lübben, August (1875–1881), Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6 vols., Bremen: Kühtmann; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities
4. ^ Lübben, August; Walther, Christoph (1888), Mittelniederdeutsches Handwörterbuch, Norden / Leipzig: Soltau
5. ^ 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. 26, 1219
6. ^ a b c d Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
7. ^ Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag