Etymologically
Log in

gar

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 17:30. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /ɡaːr/, [ɡaː], [ɡaːɐ̯][1]

Forms

gar (strong nominative masculine singular garer, not comparable)[1] Middle High German gar, gare had inflected forms garewer, garwer, as Old High German garo had garawēr.[2][3] Hans Sachs also wrote garb.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German gare (“ready, prepared; complete”), inherited from Old High German garo (“ready, prepared, equipped”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *garu, inherited from Proto-Germanic *garwaz (“ready, finished”).[4][2][1] The same word is Old Saxon garu, Middle Low German gār, Dutch gaar, Old English gearo (“ready”) (English dialect yare) and Old Norse gǫrr; it is found only in North and West Germanic.[4][2][5]

Its origin is disputed.[4] Kluge, following Heidermanns, thinks it most probable that it is a back-formation from a verb Proto-Germanic *garwijaną (“to make ready”), built with the prefix *ga- on the adjective Proto-Germanic *arwaz (“quick, ready”), seen in Old Norse ǫrr (“ready, willing”) and Old Saxon aru (“ready, ripe”).[4][6] The Old Norse adjective serves as the participle of the verb gørva (“to make ready”), which supports this.[4] That adjective goes back to Proto-Indo-European *orwo- (“quick, ready”), also found in Avestan aurva (“quick, brave”) and Tocharian B ārwer (“ready”), and further to Ancient Greek ὄρνυμι (órnumi, “I set in motion”).[4] Pfeifer calls the further origin uncertain; he gives this explanation, and also an alternative from the root Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰer- (“hot, warm”) of Ancient Greek θερμός (thermós) and Latin formus (“warm”), which would require a first sense “cooked”, not proved.[2]

The verb gerben “to tan”, originally “to make ready”, is derived from it.[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German garo is recorded from the 8th century in glosses and then in the Benedictine Rule, Isidor, the Monsee Fragments, the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and other texts, meaning “ready, prepared, equipped, willing, ready for battle, adorned, accomplished”.[5][8][9] The adverb garo “entirely, completely” is found from the 8th century in glosses, Otfrid and Notker.[10][8] A runic Old Swedish form appears on the Rök stone (about 800).[5]

Semantic evolution

As an adjective the word meant “ready, finished, fit for use” until the 18th century, as in Heynatz's sind meine schuhe schon gar?.[3] The sense “cooked, done”, of food, is recorded from the 14th century;[3] Henisch (1616) quotes the rhyme Iß was gahr ist / Trinck was klar ist / Sag was wahr ist.[3] Several trades kept the old sense: gares Leder, gares Eisen, gare Kohlen in Adelung.[3][11]

As an adverb it meant “completely, entirely”, as in the Nibelungenlied's do waren gar gestorben die Guntheres man “then Gunther's men were all dead”.[3] It became an intensifier, “very, quite”, now mainly Austrian, Swiss or literary, and with negatives it means “at all” (gar nicht, gar nichts).[3][1] The old sense lives on in ganz und gar.[12] The noun Garaus comes from gar aus “quite over”, probably the watchman's call that announced the closing hour in Nuremberg and Regensburg around 1500.[2]

The adverb was borrowed into Czech as kór and Slovak as gôr “even, especially”.[13]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German garo appears in glosses.[5][9]
  • c. 800 – A runic Old Swedish form is carved on the Rök stone.[5]
  • 863–871 – Otfrid uses the adverb garo “completely”.[10]
  • 14th century – First record of the sense “cooked”.[3]
  • c. 1500 – Garaus is the curfew call in Nuremberg and Regensburg.[2]
  • 1536 – Dasypodius records the word in Early New High German.[3]
  • 18th century – The general sense “ready” goes out of use.[3]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of food: cooked, done: Der Reis ist noch nicht gar.[14][1]
  2. (agriculture) Of soil: in the best state for sowing.[14]
  3. (southern Germany, Austria, colloquial) Used up: Das Brot ist gar.[14][15]
  4. (technical) Of metal or leather: refined, dressed.[1][11]

Adverb

  1. With a negative: at all: gar nicht, gar nichts, gar kein.[1][3]
  2. (formal or literary) even, expressing a climax: Er kam spät oder gar nicht.[1]
  3. (formal or literary, with zu) All too: gar zu gern.[1]
  4. (Austria, Switzerland, otherwise poetic) Very, quite: gar schön.[1]
  5. In ganz und gar: completely.[1][12]

Word family

  • garen
  • Garaus
  • Garküche
  • sogar
  • gerben
  • English yare

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 332
  5. ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 4, 84
  6. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  8. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 123
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 4, 86
  11. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  12. ^ a b Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  13. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  14. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  15. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org