Etymologically
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kaum

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Pronunciation

  • /kaʊ̯m/, [kʰaʊ̯m][1]

Forms

kaum[1] Early New High German had extended forms such as kaumet and kaumend (16th century).[2] The Early New High German dictionary also lists kaumlich, kaumerlich and monophthongized kam, kom.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German kūme, inherited from Old High German kūmo (“with difficulty, hardly”), the adverb of the adjective Proto-Germanic *kūmaz (“weak, miserable”).[4][5][1] The same adverb is Middle Low German kūme and Middle Dutch cume; the adjective survives in Low German küm (“weak, frail”), in Old English cȳme (“fine, lovely”) and in kūmīg (“sick, feeble”).[2][6] The word is limited to the continental West Germanic languages.[7][6]

Kluge takes the basic sense to be “pitiful”, since the words belong with kūmen (“to lament”) and Old Saxon kūmian (“to mourn”).[4] Pfeifer, Duden and Kroonen link them, as with Kauz and Köter, to an imitative root Proto-Indo-European *gewH- (“to call, cry”), also in Ancient Greek γοάω (goáō, “to wail”) and Lithuanian gaũsti (“to resound”).[2][7][5] The development “sickly, weak” → “only with effort” → “almost not” matches Latin aegrē (“hardly”) beside aeger (“sick”).[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German kūmo appears in the Tatian (about 830), Otfrid and Notker and in glosses, glossing Latin vix and aegre and meaning “hardly, with difficulty, unwillingly”.[9][10][11]

Semantic evolution

From “with difficulty” the meaning shifted between “almost not” and “not quite”;[2][8] Middle High German and Middle Low German also used the word ironically for “not at all”.[2][8] The temporal use “only just, no sooner than” arose in Early New High German and Middle Low German, as did the use expressing the speaker's doubt, “probably not”.[2]

Paul notes intensified forms that are no longer used, such as kaum kaum in Schiller and kaum und kaum in Lessing.[8] Kaum dass was very common in the 18th century, as in Goethe's kaum daß hie und da ein Sternchen durchblinkt “hardly a little star shines through here and there”, and only later became a conjunction.[8][2]

Timeline

  • 9th century – Old High German kūmo is recorded.[4][2]
  • c. 830 – The Tatian uses the word.[9]
  • 16th century – Extended forms kaumet, kaumend appear, and the temporal sense develops.[2]
  • 18th century – kaum dass becomes very frequent.[8]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. Hardly, barely, almost not: Sie hat die ganze Nacht kaum geschlafen;[12][1] kaum jemand “hardly anyone”.[12][1]
  2. Only with difficulty: Das kann man kaum glauben.[12][1]
  3. Probably not: Er wird jetzt kaum noch anrufen.[12]
  4. Just, no sooner than: Kaum waren wir draußen, begann es zu regnen.[12][1]
  5. (dated) In kaum dass: no sooner than; or barely, only just.[12]
  • Kauz
  • Köter

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  4. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 483
  5. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 11, 352
  7. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  8. ^ a b c d e f Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 185
  11. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 5, 872
  12. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag