Etymologically
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kurz

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Pronunciation

  • /kʊʁt͡s/, [kʰʊɐ̯t͡s][1]

Forms

kurz (strong nominative masculine singular kurzer, comparative kürzer, superlative am kürzesten)[1] Old High German also had the unshifted kurt, found in Upper German and Franconian;[2][3] Otfrid uses both.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German kurz, inherited from Old High German kurz, borrowed from Latin curtus (“shortened, docked, mutilated”), borrowed before the High German consonant shift, so that the Latin /t/ became /ts/.[4][5][6] The unshifted Old High German kurt is either the old form or a second borrowing.[5][4] The Latin word also gave Old Saxon kurt, Middle Low German kort, Middle Dutch cort and Old Frisian kort, today Dutch kort; Swedish kort and the other Scandinavian forms come from Middle Low German.[2][4] Old English must have had it too, as Old English cyrtel, English kirtle, shows.[2]

curtus means “cut off”, and belongs to the root Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”) of scheren.[4][5][6]

Beside it Old High German had the native skurz (“short”), like Old English scort, English short; it survives in Schurz.[7][1] The EWA explains its /u/ by the influence of the borrowed word;[7] Lühr and Matzel, on the other hand, take the adjective itself as a native variant without the initial /s/.[7] The Grimms' dictionary had already doubted that a borrowing from Latin explains everything.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German kurz is recorded from the 9th century, in glosses, the Murbach Hymns (810–817), the Middle Franconian Psalms, Otfrid and Notker, of short extent in space, short time and brief speech.[2][8][9]

Semantic evolution

Many phrases go back a long way: über kurz oder lang “sooner or later” is Middle High German, with an Old High German forerunner around 1000;[5] den Kürzeren ziehen “to lose out”, from drawing the shorter straw in a lot, is recorded from 1599;[5][10] zu kurz kommen “to get less than one's share” is in Kramer (1700).[10] Jemanden kurz halten “to keep someone on a short rein” came from the leash of the hunting dog.[10][11]

As a discourse word kurz “in short”, introducing a summary, is used from the 15th century, in Geiler von Kaysersberg.[10] Kurze Waren (18th century) were goods not measured by the ell, at first also ironware and toys; today Kurzwaren are haberdashery.[5][10] kurzerhand (18th century) renders legal Latin brevi manu.[5] Hungarian kudarc (“failure”), recorded in 1575, is listed as a borrowing of this word.[12]

Timeline

  • 810–817 – Old High German kurz appears in the Murbach Hymns.[8]
  • 9th century – The noun kurtī and the verb kurzen are recorded.[5]
  • c. 1000 – An early form of über kurz oder lang is recorded.[5]
  • 15th century – kurz “in short” is used to introduce a summary.[10]
  • 1575 – Hungarian kudarc is recorded.[12]
  • 1599 – den Kürzeren ziehen is recorded.[10]
  • 1700 – Kramer records zu kurz kommen.[10]
  • 19th century – Kurzwaren and Kurzschluss appear.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. short in space: ein kurzer Rock, der kürzeste Weg.[13][1]
  2. Short in time, brief: eine kurze Pause.[13][1]
  3. Of speech or writing: concise, using few words: eine kurze Antwort.[13][1]
  4. (sport, especially football) Near, closest to the player who shoots: das kurze Eck.[1]

Adverb

  1. Briefly, for a short time: Ich schaue kurz vorbei.[1][13]
  2. Just, shortly, a short time or distance before or after: kurz nach acht.[1][10]
  3. In short: Kurz, es hat sich gelohnt.[1][10]

Word family

  • Kürze
  • kürzen
  • abkürzen
  • verkürzen
  • Kürzung
  • kürzlich
  • Kürzel
  • Kurzweil
  • kurzweilig
  • kurzum
  • kurzerhand
  • Kurzwaren
  • Kurzschluss
  • kurzsichtig
  • kurzfristig
  • Schurz
  • scheren
  • English short
  • English curt

Usage notes

Kurz treten (from soldiers' language, where the inner rank takes shorter steps when wheeling) and kürzer treten mean “to cut back, take things easier”.[13] Adelung explains kurz angebunden “curt” as “quick to anger”, and connects it with tying a horse on a short rein.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. 5, 927
  3. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 11, 2823
  4. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 551
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 489
  7. ^ a b c Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 8, 353
  8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 187
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  12. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  13. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag