Etymologically
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genau

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Pronunciation

  • /ɡəˈnaʊ̯/[1]

Forms

genau (strong nominative masculine singular genauer, comparative genauer, superlative am genauesten or am genausten)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German genou (“narrow, tight; careful”), from Middle High German ge- + nou (“narrow, tight, careful”), an adjective originally of Middle German.[2][3][4][5] The base adjective, lost in modern German, is nouwe, Middle Low German nouwe and Dutch nauw (“narrow, tight”), continuing Proto-Germanic *hnawwaz (“tight, narrow; scant, stingy”);[2][3][1] Old English hnēaw (“niggardly”) and Old Norse hnøggr (“stingy”) show the related sense “stingy”.[2][3][1]

It belongs to a strong verb seen in Old High German hniuwan (“to pound, crush”), Middle High German niuwen and Old Norse hnøggva (“to strike, push”), whose form Kluge calls rather unstable.[2][3][6] Outside Germanic, Pfeifer and the Duden dictionary compare Ancient Greek κνύω (knúō, “to scratch, rub”) and Latvian knudēt (“to itch”), from Proto-Indo-European *kneu-, possibly an extension of Proto-Indo-European *ken- (“to scratch, rub”).[3][4] The adjective would then first have meant “pressing, scraping”;[4][7] Wahrig notes that the reason for the change of meaning is unknown.[4][7]

The Grimms' dictionary, following Müllenhoff, held instead that this adjective and nah go back to a single older form, with the adverb Gothic 𐌽𐌴𐍈𐌰 (nēƕa, “near”).[8][9] The newer dictionaries do not follow this.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Middle High German genou is recorded from the 13th century, meaning “careful”, and as an adverb “narrowly, barely”.[2] The Early New High German dictionary gives “exact, thorough, careful, close, near” and also “hardly”.[10]

Semantic evolution

Until Early New High German, and in some uses into the 18th century, the word meant “near, close”, like eng: Kramer in 1702 still has ein genauer Freund “a close friend”, and Adelung records genaue Schuhe “tight shoes” in Upper German.[5][11] From this came “exact”, as in Henisch (1616) and Stieler (1691), “careful, thorough” and, unfavourably, “petty” or “thrifty”: in Goethe's Faust Margarete says of her mother die Mutter ist gar zu genau.[5] The sense “narrow, scarce” lives on in the old phrase mit genauer Not “only just”.[5]

As a reply genau! “exactly, quite so” has been used colloquially since about 1950, under the influence of English exactly.[5] Upper Silesian Polish borrowed the word as gynał “quite, really, precisely”.[12]

Timeline

  • 13th century – Middle High German genou “careful”.[2]
  • 15th century – genau in the sense “exactly the same”.[5]
  • 16th century – The noun Genauigkeit is recorded.[3]
  • 1616 – Henisch's dictionary has genau “exact”.[5]
  • 1702 – Kramer still records ein genauer Freund “a close friend”.[5]
  • About 1950 – genau! comes into use as a reply of agreement.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Exact, precise, agreeing in every detail: die genaue Zeit.[13][1]
  2. Thorough, careful, going into detail: eine genaue Prüfung.[13][9]
  3. (regional) Thrifty, careful with money.[13]
  4. (dated) Close, intimate: ein genauer Freund.[13][5]

Adverb

  1. Exactly, just: es ist genau zwölf Uhr.[13][1]
  2. Stressing a word: precisely, just that: genau das habe ich gemeint.[13]
  3. (colloquial) As a reply: quite so, exactly.[13][5]

Word family

  • Genauigkeit
  • ungenau
  • genauso
  • Middle Low German nouwe

Usage notes

Es mit etwas genau nehmen means “to be strict or particular about something”.[13][5] Genau genommen “strictly speaking” is a fixed formula.[13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f 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. 346
  3. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 6, 995
  7. ^ a b Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  8. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 5, 3348
  9. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
  10. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  11. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  12. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag