Etymologically
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häufig

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Pronunciation

  • [ˈhɔɪ̯.fɪç], [ˈhɔɪ̯.fɪk][1]

Forms

häufig (strong nominative masculine singular häufiger, comparative häufiger, superlative am häufigsten)[1]

Etymology

It is from German Haufen + -ig, formed in the 16th century and first meaning “in heaps, heaped”;[2][3][1] Wiktionary analyses it as the stem of häufen with the suffix.[2][3][1] It displaced the older form häuficht in the written language in the 17th century; compare Middle High German hūfeht (“heaped”).[4][3]

The noun is hūfe, Old High German hūfo, Proto-Germanic *hūpô, found only in German, beside the ablaut form houf, Old Saxon hōp and Old English hēap, continued in English heap and Dutch hoop.[2][3][1] Outside Germanic the nearest form is Lithuanian káupas (“heap”).[2] Pfeifer takes it from Proto-Indo-European *kewb-, an extension of Proto-Indo-European *kew- (“to bend”), the root also behind Hüfte and hüpfen.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The adjective appears in the 16th century; the FWB records it from the second third of the century, of people and animals “in crowds, in great numbers” and of things “in heaps, in large quantity, abundant”.[2][5][3] An early dictionary glosses Latin conglobatim, turmatim “in a mass, in troops” with heufig.[4]

Semantic evolution

Until the early 19th century it meant “in heaps, plentiful, in crowds”: Luther's Bible has the princes coming heufig before the king (Daniel 6:6), and Voss's Odyssey speaks of häufige Kiesel, densely packed pebbles.[4][3][6] The FWB also records a sense “very strong, violent”.[5] The sense “often”, of repetition in time, is recorded from the second half of the 18th century, and Adelung already gives it as a figurative use.[3][6][7] Speakers today no longer connect the word with Haufen.[6] The old sense can still be read in Eichendorff and Kleist, where blood or tears flow häufig.[8]

Timeline

  • 16th century – First record, in the sense “in heaps, in great numbers”.[2][5]
  • 17th century – häufig displaces häuficht in the written language.[4]
  • Second half of the 18th century – First record of the sense “often”.[3][6]
  • Early 19th century – The sense “in heaps, abundant” goes out of use.[3][6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. frequent, occurring often or in large numbers: ein häufiger Irrtum.[8][1]
  2. common.[1]
  3. (literary, dated) Plentiful, in large quantity.[8]

Adverb

  1. often, frequently.[1][8]
  • Haufen
  • häufeln
  • zuhauf
  • English heap

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. 399
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 593
  5. ^ a b c Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  6. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  7. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 2, 1007
  8. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag