entfernt

Forms

entfernt (strong nominative masculine singular entfernter, comparative entfernter, superlative am entferntesten)^[1]

Etymology

It is the past participle of entfernen, inherited from Middle High German entverret, which became fixed as an adjective meaning “far away”.^[2][3] The verb, recorded from the 13th century as entfernen and earlier entverren, is a prefix derivation from German ent- + fern.^[2]

The adverb fern goes back to Proto-Germanic *ferrai, as do Gothic 𐍆𐌰𐌹𐍂𐍂𐌰 (fairra), Old Norse fjarri and Old English feorr.^[4][5] Kluge explains it as a contrastive formation in Proto-Indo-European *-ero-, with an irregular loss of the middle vowel, on *per-, which appears in Ancient Greek πέρα (péra, “further, beyond”) and Latin porrō (“forwards”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest quotation in the revised Grimms' dictionary, from the German mystics of the late 13th or early 14th century, says that God is entverret from all materiality, that is, of a different nature.^[3] In the spatial sense “far off, separated” it is quoted from 1638.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century the Grimms' dictionary records entfernt of places and times, as in ein entferntes Land, and of relatives, as in ein entfernter Verwandter “a distant relative”.^[6] Weakened, it came to mean “slight, faint”, as in eine entfernte Ähnlichkeit.^[6][7] The phrase weit entfernt, zu … “far from doing …” is found in Klinger and Goethe.^[6] The abstract noun Entfernung, from the participle, has meant “distance” since the 17th century.^[2]

Timeline

• 8th century – Kluge's date for the first record of the Old High German forms of fern.^[4]
• 13th century – The verb entfernen is first recorded.^[2]
• Late 13th or early 14th century – First record of the participle entverret.^[3]
• 1638 – First record in the spatial sense.^[3]
• 17th century – Entfernung comes to mean “distance”.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. distant, remote; far away: aus den entferntesten Dörfern;^[7][1] nicht im Entferntesten, not in the least.^[7][1]
2. At a given distance; away: Das Dorf liegt zehn Kilometer entfernt.^[7][1]
3. Distantly related: ein entfernter Cousin.^[7]
4. Slight, faint, vague: Ich erinnere mich nur entfernt an ihn.^[7]

Related words

• entfernen
• Entfernung
• fern
• Ferne

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 248
3. ^ a b c d e 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
4. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 288
5. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 264
6. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 517
7. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag