gut

Forms

gut (strong nominative masculine singular guter, comparative besser, superlative am besten)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German guot, inherited from Old High German guot, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *gōd, inherited from Proto-Germanic *gōdaz (“suitable, good”).^[2][1][3] The same word is Gothic 𐌲𐍉𐌸𐍃 (gōþs), Old Norse góðr, Old English gōd, Old Saxon gōd and Old Frisian gōd, and it survives in Dutch goed, English good and Swedish god.^[2][4][3]

Pfeifer, Duden and Kroonen connect it with the family of Gatte: it is an o-grade adjective from a lost strong verb Proto-Germanic *gadaną (“to fit”), from the root Proto-Indo-European *gʰedʰ- (“to unite, fit together”), so that the first sense was “fitting, suitable”.^[4][5][3] Pfeifer compares Old High German gigat (“fitting”).^[4] Kluge thinks this connection possible but notes that in sense the closest match is Ancient Greek ἀγαθός (agathós, “good, brave, excellent”), which would correspond only in a form with /k/, attested as a gloss.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German guot is recorded from the 8th century.^[2][4] In Old High German it meant “good, righteous, just, excellent”, “kind, friendly”, “pious, holy”, “brave” and “strong, great”; it appears in the Hildebrandslied, the Ludwigslied, the Benedictine Rule and the Georgslied, among other texts.^[7][8]

Semantic evolution

Pfeifer traces a rich development from “fitting, suitable”: first “fit for a purpose, useful”, and of people “capable, skilled”; then a word of value, “valuable, of high quality” for things and “noble, respected, honest” for people; then “pleasant, advantageous”; and, already in the oldest period, “well-disposed, friendly, kind” and, in ethics, “righteous, virtuous”.^[4] With measures it came to mean “full, ample”, as in eine gute Stunde “a good hour”.^[4] Duden notes that the older stages already used it roughly as it is used today.^[5]

The word originally had no adverb of its own; wohl served instead, and gut is now used as an adverb too.^[9] The neuter used as a noun, Gut, meant “what is good; property, possessions” from the 8th century, and in Middle High German also “landed estate”.^[4][5] In compounds such as Saatgut “seed” and Diebesgut “stolen goods”, -gut has faded into a semi-suffix.^[2]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German guot is first recorded, as adjective and as noun.^[2][4]
• 9th century – Old High German guotī, the ancestor of Güte, appears.^[4]
• 15th century – gutmütig and begütigen appear.^[4]
• Early 16th century – Gutachten is formed from für gut achten “consider good”.^[4]
• c. 1800 – Guthaben appears.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Good, of satisfactory quality, meeting the demands made on it: ein guter Wein “a good wine”.^[10][1]
2. Effective, useful, suited to a purpose: gut gegen Fieber “good for fever”.^[9][1]
3. Pleasant, favourable: gutes Wetter “good weather”.^[9][1]
4. Morally good, kind, well-meaning.^[1][11]
5. (school) The second-best mark, “good”.^[11][10]
6. With measures: a good, a little more than: eine gute Stunde “a good hour”.^[4][1]
7. Kept for special occasions: der gute Anzug “the Sunday suit”.^[9][11]

Adverb

1. Well, competently, satisfactorily.^[1][10]
2. Easily: du hast gut reden “it's easy for you to talk”.^[9][1]

Interjection

1. Okay, all right.^[1][10]

Word family

• Gut
• Güte
• gütig
• gütlich
• vergüten
• begütigen
• begütert
• Gutachten
• Gutdünken
• Guthaben
• gutheißen
• gutmütig
• Gutmensch
• ungut

Related words

• Gatte
• Gatter
• Gitter
• English good

Usage notes

Its comparative and superlative, besser and beste, have always come from a different stem, related to Buße.^[9] Guten Tag, guten Abend and gute Nacht are old greetings, and mach's gut! means “take care!”.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 381
3. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 345
6. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 9, 1225
7. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 135
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
10. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
11. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org