Etymologically
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hin

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Pronunciation

Forms

hin[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German hin (also hine), inherited from Old High German hina, an adverb formed with an n-suffix from the pronoun stem Proto-Germanic *hi- (“this”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱi- (“this”), and so originally meant “away from here”.[2][3][4] The same formation is found in Old Saxon hin- (in compounds), Middle Low German hen, Middle Dutch hene, Dutch heen and the prefix Old English hin-.[2][3] The same pronoun stem underlies her, hier and heute, and the pronoun English he.[3][5] Outside Germanic, Pfeifer compares Old Irish cen (“on this side; without”), which matches it closely, Latin cis (“on this side”) and Lithuanian šìs (“this”).[3]

A longer form, Old High German hinnān (modern hinnen), parallels Old English heonan, the source of English hence.[6][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German hina is recorded from the 8th century: Köbler lists glosses of about 765 and the Hildebrandslied, and it is common in Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and Williram.[7][8][4] It meant “away from here, hence”, also “away from earthly life”, and of time “from now on, afterwards”, always pointing away from the speaker, the opposite of her.[4][8]

Semantic evolution

The old sense “away from the speaker” lives on mainly in the adverbs formed with it, such as hinab, hinauf, hinaus and hinein, which go back to Old High German phrases like hina ūf and hina ūz.[3][4] In southern colloquial speech these are cut down to nauf, naus, nein, as the Grimms already noted.[9][5] Today hin mostly marks the direction towards a goal named in the sentence (zum Meer hin, dorthin, wohin), whatever the speaker's position.[3][5][10]

With verbs such as fallen and sinken it took on the sense “down to the ground”.[3][10] Stressing removal, it became a synonym of weg and fort, which led to the colloquial predicative uses “lost, broken, exhausted, dead”.[3][5][10] Of time it points from the present into the future or the past, as in weiterhin and vorhin.[3][5] In words like schlechthin and gemeinhin it has lost any clear spatial or temporal meaning.[10]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German hina appears in glosses and the Hildebrandslied.[7][4]
  • 9th century – hina ūz, the forerunner of hinaus, is recorded.[3][4]
  • c. 1000 – hina ūf and hina in (later hinauf, hinein) appear.[3][4]
  • Mid-16th century – hingegen is used as an adverb, “in reply”; as a conjunction “on the other hand” it follows at the end of the century.[3]
  • 19th century – the longer form hinnen drops out of everyday use.[3]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. Towards a place or point: nach Norden hin “towards the north”, gegen Abend hin “towards evening”.[11][1]
  2. Along or through, marking extent in space or time: über viele Jahre hin “over many years”, vor sich hin summen “to hum to oneself”.[11]
  3. (colloquial) Split off from wohin or dahin: Wo fährst du hin? “Where are you going?”[11]
  4. auf … hin: in view of, on the basis of, or with a view to something: auf seine Empfehlung hin “on his recommendation”.[11]

Adjective

  1. (colloquial, predicative) Gone, lost: Das Geld ist hin.[11][1]
  2. (colloquial, predicative) Broken, kaput: Der Drucker ist hin.[11][1]
  3. (colloquial, predicative) Worn out, exhausted, or ruined.[11][1]
  4. (slang, predicative) Dead.[11][1]
  5. (colloquial) Carried away, captivated, often hin und weg.[11][1]

Word family

  • hinab
  • hinauf
  • hinaus
  • hinein
  • hinüber
  • hinunter
  • hinweg
  • hinzu
  • dahin
  • wohin
  • vorhin
  • hingegen
  • hinnen
  • hinfällig
  • hinrichten
  • schlechthin

Usage notes

Hin und her “to and fro” and hin und wieder “now and then” pair hin with its opposite;[12] Adelung already uses hin und wieder for “here and there”.[12] The proverbial hin ist hin means “what is gone is gone”.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 416
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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 e f g Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 4, 1023
  5. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  6. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 417
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 152
  9. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 1371
  10. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 384
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  12. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 2, 1180