Etymologically
Log in

Winter

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 20:21. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

Forms

Winter m (genitive Winters, plural Winter)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German winter, also winder, inherited from Old High German wintar, inherited from Proto-Germanic *wintruz (“winter”).[2][3][4][1] Kluge reconstructs Proto-Germanic *went-r-, probably an r-stem.[2] The same word is Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌽𐍄𐍂𐌿𐍃 (wintrus), Old Norse vetr, which also meant “year”, Old English winter, Old Frisian winter and Old Saxon wintar.[2][3][4] In the older Old High German and Old Saxon inflected forms the second vowel is still missing, as in wintro in the Hildebrandslied and wintro in the Heliand.[5]

Its origin is unclear, and none of the proposals is convincing.[2][4][6] The Grimms' dictionary, Pfeifer, Wahrig and Duden's dictionary connect it with Wasser, as a nasalised form of the root Proto-Indo-European *wed- (“water, wet”) beside Latin unda (“wave”) and Lithuanian vanduõ (“water”), so that winter would be the wet season;[5][3][7][8] Kroonen rejects this, since the Latin word goes back to a form without the nasal infix.[4] Others compare Old Irish find (“white”), making it the white season, which Kroonen finds semantically weak.[2][4][7] Mezger linked it with Old High German winistar (“left”), from a root meaning “away”, so that winter would be the time turned away from the south;[3][6][2] Kluge does not find this sufficiently supported either.[3][6][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German wintar is first recorded in glosses of about 765 and is found in the Hildebrandslied, the Benedictine Rule, Tatian, Notker and Williram.[9][10] It meant the cold season, and in the older languages also a year counted by its winters.[11][4]

Semantic evolution

The old sense “year” was no longer general in Middle High German, but survived in poetry: Johann Christian Günther wrote of someone fünfzehn winter old.[11] The twin formula Sommer und Winter stood for the whole year, which the Germanic peoples divided into two halves.[11][5] Poets personified the season and used it for old age and for coldness of feeling: Knigge speaks of the winter unsers lebens covering our hair with snow.[11] Adelung adds the sense “wintry weather”, as when people say there has been hardly any winter in a mild year.[12] A Wintergarten is recorded in 1610.[11] The noun is also a German surname.[1][13]

Timeline

  • About 765 – First record, in Old High German glosses.[9]
  • 9th century – wintro in the Hildebrandslied and the Heliand.[5]
  • 1610 – Wintergarten is recorded.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. winter, the coldest season of the year, between autumn and spring: Im Winter fahren wir in die Berge.[8][1][13]
  2. The cold weather of this season: Dieses Jahr hatten wir kaum Winter.[12][8]

Word family

  • Wintergarten
  • überwintern
  • winterlich

Usage notes

Nuklearer Winter “nuclear winter” is the possible cooling of the atmosphere after a war fought with nuclear weapons.[8] The phrase Winter wie Sommer means all the year round.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 990
  3. ^ a b c d e 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 e f Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 30, 418
  6. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 936
  7. ^ a b Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  8. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 392
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  13. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org