nichts

Forms

nichts (indefinite pronoun, not inflected)^[1][2] The fuller form nichtes was used until the beginning of the 18th century.^[3][4] Colloquial and regional forms include nix, nischt and nichs.^[1][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German nihtes, the genitive of niht (“nothing; not”), the ancestor of nicht.^[5][6][7] Paul and the Duden derive it from the reinforced Middle High German phrase nihtes niht (“nothing at all”), literally “nothing of nothing”, from which the second word was dropped once it was understood as the negative particle;^[3][7][2] Kluge thinks that this phrase may have contributed.^[5] The genitive was then reinterpreted as a nominative and accusative,^[5] helped by the many verbs whose genitive objects became accusatives, so that the pronoun after a verb such as vergessen continues a Middle High German genitive.^[3]

The base word is niowiht, put together from ni (“not”), io (“ever”) (modern je) and wiht (“creature, thing”) (modern Wicht): “not any thing”.^[6] It corresponds to Old English nōwiht (English nought) and to the Gothic phrase 𐌽𐌹 𐍅𐌰𐌹𐌷𐍄 (ni waíht, “nothing”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kluge dates nichts to the 13th century.^[5] The Grimms' dictionary finds the bare genitive from the 14th century, in Konrad von Megenberg (dâ wil ich nihts von sprechen) and in a city chronicle of 1368 (nichtes ze tun noch ze schaffen).^[4]

Semantic evolution

The phrase nichtsnicht long continued beside the new pronoun.^[4] Older German still used nichts as a genitive, as in Luther's dich soll nichts gelüsten, and with comparatives, where it survives in nichtsdestoweniger (late 15th century);^[3][6] nichtswürdig “base, contemptible” dates from the 17th century, and the joking blend nichtsdestotrotz combines nichtsdestoweniger and trotzdem.^[6][7] Mir nichts, dir nichts “without more ado” is recorded by Stieler in 1691.^[3]

The noun Nichts “nothingness, void” appeared in the 16th century.^[6][7] In the proverb Nichts ist gut für die Augen, Nichts stands for an older Nicht “zinc oxide”, used for the eyes, taken from Greek-Latin onychitis: the saying is a pun.^[3][8] American English picked up nix in phrases such as nix come arous (1844) and mox nix (1954).^[9]

Timeline

• 13th century – nichts appears in late Middle High German.^[5]
• 1368 – nichtes is used in a city chronicle.^[4]
• Late 15th century – nichtsdestoweniger appears.^[6]
• 16th century – The noun Nichts appears.^[6][7]
• 17th century – nichtswürdig appears.^[6]
• 1691 – mir nichts, dir nichts is recorded by Stieler.^[3]
• Early 18th century – The form nichtes goes out of use.^[3]
• 1844 – American English nix come arous is recorded.^[9]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. Not anything, nothing: er hat heute nichts gegessen.^[2][1]
2. (before an adjective used as a noun, or with sonst, weiter) No thing: nichts Besonderes, sonst nichts.^[2]

Word family

• Nichts
• nichtsdestoweniger
• nichtsdestotrotz
• nichtswürdig
• Nichtsnutz

Related words

• nicht
• Wicht
• je

Usage notes

Nichts da! (colloquial) means “out of the question!”, and wie nichts “in no time”.^[2] Aus nichts wird nichts and von nichts kommt nichts are proverbs.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
4. ^ 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. 13, 718
5. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 655
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 591
8. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 13, 727
9. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de