heute

Forms

heute (adverb), colloquially also heut.^[2][1] Beside it Middle High German and Early New High German had hiuten, heuten, whose final -n is perhaps modelled on morgen.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German hiute, inherited from Old High German hiutu, contracted from the instrumental phrase *hiu tagu (“on this day”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *hiu dagu, from Proto-Germanic *hinō dagō (“on this day”).^[4][5][1][6] The same fusion is found in Old Saxon hiudu, Old Frisian hiūdega, Old English hēodæġ and Dutch heden, whose final /n/ copies the words for “yesterday” and “tomorrow”.^[4][6] The first part is the pronoun stem Proto-Germanic *hi- (“this”), which still stands on its own in Gothic 𐌷𐌹𐌼𐌼𐌰 𐌳𐌰𐌲𐌰 (himma daga, “today, on this day”); the second is the word for Tag.^[4][5][7][1]

The stem continues Proto-Indo-European *ḱi- (“this”), also in Latin cis (“on this side”), Lithuanian šis (“this”), Old Church Slavonic сь (sĭ, “this”) and Hittite kī (“this here”); Ancient Greek σήμερον (sḗmeron, “today”) is a parallel formation with the Greek word for “day”.^[4] Duden, Wahrig and Paul think the Old High German phrase may be a loan translation of hodiē (“today”).^[8][9][10] heuer “this year” was formed in the same way from a phrase meaning “in this year”.^[8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German hiutu appears in Alemannic glosses of the end of the 8th or beginning of the 9th century, then in the Hildebrandslied, the Saint Gall Paternoster, Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, meaning today, now, at present;^[6][11] untaz hiutu was “until today”.^[6][11]

Semantic evolution

The Grimms think the word first covered only the daylight part of the day, while heint named the night; in the 16th century the pair could still be set side by side, and some Upper German dialects use heute for “this morning”.^[3] The extension to the whole day had already happened in Old High German.^[3] Because the noun “day” was no longer felt in it, the pleonasm heute diesen Tag arose, found in Hartmann's Iwein and in Luther's Bible.^[3]

From “on this day” it came to mean “nowadays”, especially in heutzutage;^[10] Schiller used it as a noun, das Heute.^[10] The adjective heutig is Old High German hiutīg (8th century).^[5]

Timeline

• Late 8th century – Old High German hiutu in Alemannic glosses.^[6]
• 8th century – The adjective hiutīg “of today” is recorded.^[5]
• c. 1120–1130 – Middle High German hiute in the Exodus.^[12]
• 16th century – heute “today” and heint “tonight” are still set side by side.^[3]

Meanings

Adverb

1. today, on this day: Heute ist Freitag.^[2][1]
2. At the present time, nowadays: Heute reist man schneller als früher.^[2][13]

Word family

• heutig
• heutzutage

Related words

• heuer
• hier
• Tag
• Old English hēodæġ

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include heute oder morgen “any day now”, lieber heute als morgen “the sooner the better” and von heute auf morgen “overnight, all of a sudden”.^[2] Used as a noun, das Heute is the present day.^[2][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
3. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 1294
4. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 414
5. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
6. ^ 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, 1076
7. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 369
9. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
10. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
11. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 154
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org