Etymologically
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außer

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈaʊ̯sɐ/, [ˈʔaʊ̯sɐ][1]

Forms

außer[1] In Switzerland it is spelled ausser.[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German ūzer, inherited from Old High German ūzar, inherited from Proto-Germanic *ūtar (“outside, out of”).[2][3][1] The same word is Old Saxon ūtar, Old Norse útar, Old English ūtor and Old Frisian ūter.[2][4] It is formed from the Germanic adverb continued in aus, which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ud- (“out, up”).[2][3]

The adjective äußere, Old High German ūzaro, belongs with it and corresponds to English outer, utter and Swedish yttre; its umlaut is secondary, taken over from the superlative äußerst.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German ūzar is first recorded in glosses of 765, and then in Otfrid, the Tatian and Notker.[3] It meant “out of, out from” and “outside”, and also “except, but” and “unless”.[3][5]

Semantic evolution

At first the word was spatial and could express both direction (“out of”) and position (“outside”).[5][4] Luther's Bible has it often in this sense, as in außer dem Lager “outside the camp”, and it stayed in use into the 19th century: Lessing, Goethe and Schiller still wrote außer der Stadt or außer dir for “outside the town”, “outside yourself”.[5] Adelung explained phrases like außer Athem and außer Acht as remnants of an older use in which außer stood for aus.[6] The genitive survives in außer Landes, and an accusative after verbs of motion, as in Schiller's außer allen Zweifel setzen.[5]

Today the spatial sense lives on mainly in set phrases with nouns of state, such as außer Atem, außer Gefahr, außer Zweifel, außer Dienst and außer sich sein “to be beside oneself”, and the word is otherwise used figuratively for “apart from, except”.[4][5] In this sense it also became a conjunction, especially before other conjunctions, as in außer dass and außer wenn.[5] In compounds with adjectives in -lich, such as außerordentlich and außergewöhnlich, it marks something as lying outside the state the adjective names, close to the sense of un-.[5]

Timeline

  • 765 – Old High German ūzar appears in glosses.[3][2]
  • 1060–1065 – Middle High German ūzer is used by Williram of Ebersberg.[7]
  • 16th century – Luther's Bible uses außer in the spatial sense “outside”.[5]
  • 18th century – außer Maßen “beyond measure” is current.[5]
  • 19th century – The spatial use with a dative goes out of general use.[5]

Meanings

Preposition

  1. (with dative) except, apart from: Außer meiner Schwester kenne ich hier niemanden.[8][1]
  2. (with dative) besides, in addition to: Außer der Arbeit muss sie noch die Kinder versorgen.[8]
  3. (with dative) Outside a place, a time, a relation or a state: außer Sicht, außer Dienst, außer Betrieb “out of order”, außer Haus “out, not at home”;[8][1] (dated, with genitive) außer Landes “abroad”; with an accusative in a few verb phrases, etwas außer Zweifel setzen.[8][1]
  4. außer sich sein “to be beside oneself”, außer sich geraten “to lose one's self-control”.[8][1]

Conjunction

  1. Except, unless: außer dass, außer wenn: Wir gehen spazieren, außer es schneit.[8][1]

Word family

  • äußere
  • äußerst
  • äußerlich
  • äußern
  • außerhalb
  • außerdem
  • außerordentlich
  • außergewöhnlich

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 76
  3. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  4. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 141
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  6. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag