nie

Forms

nie^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German nie, inherited from Old High German nio, a fusion of the negative particle and the adverb now je: from Old High German ni (“not”) + io (“ever”).^[2][3][4] The same fusion is Old Saxon nio, and with another form Old English nā.^[2][5] In Gothic the parts are still separate, Gothic 𐌽𐌹 𐌰𐌹𐍅 (ni aiw).^[2][3] The adverb io goes back to Proto-Germanic *aiwin (“always, ever”), a case form of a noun meaning “time, eternity” (see ewig).^[6]

In Gothic and Old High German the word first strengthened a negation already present; after the old negative particle disappeared, it carried the negation alone.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German nio is recorded from the 8th century, in the Hildebrandslied, glosses of the late 8th century, and then in Isidor, the Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, meaning “never” and also “not at all, by no means”.^[7][8][3]

Semantic evolution

The word at first referred only to the past; it has since taken over the future too, replacing nimmer, and Luther still kept the difference between nie and nimmer.^[9] Middle High German used it for past, completed and present action, with or without the particle ne.^[10]

Early New High German often combined it with another negation, as in nie kein, which Luther's Bible has in Luke 22:35 and John 7:46;^[11][12] Adelung around 1800 condemned this doubling as a mistake.^[11][12] Older texts sometimes separated the vowels with an ⟨h⟩, as nihe and niehe.^[5] Niemals was formed in the 16th century, with the same pleonastic -mals as jemals.^[4][3]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German nio is recorded.^[2][3]
• 9th century – niomēr, the ancestor of nimmer, is recorded.^[3]
• 16th century – niemals appears.^[4][3]
• 1793 – Adelung condemns the double negative nie kein.^[12]

Meanings

Adverb

1. never, at no time: Er hat uns nie besucht.^[13][1]
2. Not once, not a single time (within a given period): In diesem Sommer war ich nie im Schwimmbad.^[13][1]
3. On no account, under no circumstances: Den Zug erreichen wir nie.^[13]

Word family

• niemals
• nimmer

Related words

• je
• niemand
• nein
• ewig

Usage notes

Nie und nimmer means “absolutely not, never ever”.^[13][1] Nie wieder is “never again”.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 655
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
5. ^ 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. 13, 738
6. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 455
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 238
9. ^ Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
10. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 75
11. ^ a b Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
12. ^ a b c Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 3, 490
13. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag