Etymologically
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bisher

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Pronunciation

  • /bɪsˈheːɐ̯/[1]

Forms

bisher[1] Until the early 17th century it was also written separately, bis her.[2] An extended form bishero is also recorded.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German bizher, formed from bis and her.[2][4][5][1] The same formation is Middle Low German bethēr.[2]

The first part, biz, is probably a fusion of bī (“by”) and ze (“to”) (now bei and zu), which lost its vowel before prepositions beginning with a vowel; it took the place of several older expressions in the 12th century.[6][4] The second, Old High German hera (“hither”), is built with a suffix of direction on the pronominal stem that marks the speaker's place.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest quotation in the revised Grimm dictionary is from Lamprecht's Alexander (about 1150), where none of the battles since the time of Darius that have happened bizher “until now” can compare.[2][5] It meant “up to now, up to the present”.[2]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed the same: “from some time in the past until now”.[2][8] The Vocabularius theutonicus of 1482 glosses biszhere with Latin hucusque, and Luther uses both bis her and bis anher in Genesis and Exodus.[3] Early New High German used it in the same sense, “until this time”.[9] The Grimms also quote Dahlmann's phrase die bürgerliche Gesellschaft von bisher “the society of the past”, with the word used like a noun after a preposition.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1150 – Middle High German bizher is used in Lamprecht's Alexander.[2][5]
  • 1263 – The word appears in a charter.[5]
  • 1482 – The Vocabularius theutonicus records biszhere.[3]
  • Early 17th century – Writing it separately goes out of use.[2]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. So far, until now, hitherto: Bisher hat niemand angerufen.[8][1]
  2. With a negative: not yet, never so far: ein bisher unbekannter Brief.[8][10]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Neubearbeitung (1965–2018), ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 9 vols. (A–F), Leipzig / Stuttgart: Hirzel, p. 5, 300
  3. ^ 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. 2, 46
  4. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  6. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 126
  7. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 410
  8. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  9. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  10. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org