Etymologically
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neun

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Pronunciation

Forms

neun (cardinal number)[1] Used without a noun the numeral could be inflected: Old High German had niuni, neuter niuniu, Middle High German niune, and New High German neune.[2] Adelung gives the dative in einer aus neunen and the genitive neuner, which he calls rare.[3] The noun die Neun (plural Neunen) names the digit.[1][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German niun, inherited from Old High German niun, inherited from Proto-Germanic *newun (“nine”).[5][6][7] The same word is Gothic 𐌽𐌹𐌿𐌽 (niun), which had two syllables, Old Norse níu, Old English nigon, Old Frisian niugun and Old Saxon nigun; it continues in Dutch negen, English nine and Swedish nio.[5][6][8] In Old Saxon, Old English, Old Frisian and Low German the /g/ arose from /w/ before /u/.[6][9] Kroonen explains this from a West Germanic form with a raised vowel, since the change only took place between two high vowels.[7]

It continues Proto-Indo-European *h₁néwn̥ (“nine”),[1][7] also found in Sanskrit नव (náva), Ancient Greek ἐννέα (ennéa), Latin novem, Old Irish noí, Lithuanian devynì and Old Church Slavonic девѧть (devętĭ).[5][6][8] The Latin numeral took its /m/ from decem (“ten”), and Baltic and Slavic changed the initial /n/ to /d/ after their word for ten.[5][6]

The numeral is often connected with neu “new”: if people counted on the fingers without the thumbs, eight used up both hands, and nine began a new set of four.[5][6][10][11] Wahrig calls this explanation not fully secured.[12] Kluge reports that more recent work finds “nine” in parallel cases to mean “ten minus one”, and so links it with Proto-Indo-European *ēneu- (“without”), “lacking one”, but judges these hypotheses rather involved.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The compound niungeldo “ninefold compensation” is recorded in the 8th century and the numeral itself from the 9th.[5] Pfeifer and Köbler date niun to about 800, in the Old High German Benedictine Rule; it also appears in the Tatian, in Notker and in the charm Pro Nessia.[6][13][14]

Semantic evolution

The ordinal neunte is Old High German niunto (8th century), Middle High German niunde.[6][10] The fish name Neunauge “lamprey”, Old High German niunouga, counts the seven gill openings as eyes beside the real eye and the nostril, and the shrike was called Neuntöter from the 16th century.[10][11]

At skittles alle neune! is the cry when one throw knocks down all nine pins, and jokingly when things crash to the floor.[4] The exclamation ach, du grüne Neune! is of unclear origin; the Duden etymological dictionary suggests a Berlin dance hall of the 19th century at Blumenstraße 9, with its main entrance on the Grüner Weg, which was popularly called die grüne Neune and soon lost its good name.[4][10]

Timeline

  • 8th century – The compound niungeldo “ninefold compensation” is recorded.[5]
  • 8th century – The ordinal niunto “ninth” appears.[6]
  • c. 800 – Old High German niun is used in the Benedictine Rule.[13][6]
  • 16th century – The bird name Neuntöter is recorded.[10]
  • 19th century – A Berlin dance hall known as die grüne Neune may have given the exclamation ach, du grüne Neune!.[10]

Meanings

Numeral

  1. nine, the cardinal number between eight and ten (9): Das Kind ist neun Jahre alt.[4][1]

Noun

  1. die Neun: the digit or number 9.[4][1]
  2. die Neun: a playing card with nine pips.[4][15]
  3. die Neun (colloquial): the tram or bus of route 9: Wir nehmen die Neun bis zum Rathaus.[4]

Word family

  • neunte
  • neunzehn
  • neunzig
  • Neunauge
  • Neuntöter

Usage notes

Older German inflected the numeral when it stood alone, and the forms neune and neunen survive in phrases such as alle neune.[2][4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 13, 679
  3. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 3, 479
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 654
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  8. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  9. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 6, 985
  10. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 582
  11. ^ a b Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  12. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  13. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  14. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 238
  15. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org