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oft

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Pronunciation

Forms

oft (comparative öfter, superlative am öftesten)[1] The fuller form ofte was still used occasionally in the 18th and 19th centuries.[2][3] The comparative öfter and the superlative öftest with umlaut appear in the 15th century, beside older ofter, oftest.[2][4] Until the 18th century a double comparative öfterer was also used.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German ofte, inherited from Old High German ofto, inherited from Proto-Germanic *uftō (“often”).[5][2][6] The same adverb is Gothic 𐌿𐍆𐍄𐌰 (ufta), Old Norse opt, Old English oft, Old Frisian ofta and Old Saxon ofto, whence English oft and its extended form often, and Swedish ofta.[5][2][6]

Its origin is unclear.[5][2] Kluge, Pfeifer and the Duden consider a derivation from the adverb seen in ob (“above”), so that the starting sense would be “excessively, beyond (once)”; compare of (“great quantity”).[5][2][7] Kroonen derives it from Proto-Germanic *uba and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₁up-to-.[6] Pfeifer also mentions a comparison with the Sanskrit participle meaning “thrown, strewn, sown”, which would give a starting sense “thickly strewn, following closely”.[2] The Grimms' dictionary calls the origin not cleared up.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German ofto is recorded from the 8th century, first in glosses of about 765, then in the Isidor, Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, translating Latin saepe, crebro, frequenter and also interdum “sometimes”.[8][9][10] Wulfila uses Gothic ufta for Greek pollákis “many times”.[3]

Semantic evolution

From Old High German on the word meant both “many times” and, depending on the context, merely “sometimes, at times”.[3][2] Adelung, in the 18th century, defined it as “more than once, without the idea of a great number”.[11][12] In the 16th and 17th centuries the need for an adjective led to forms such as die often Stöße (Andreas Gryphius), and Lessing still wrote die allzuofte Wiederholung “the all too frequent repetition”.[11] The adjectival use of the comparative, as in öftere Besuche, became general, while for the positive oftmalig (1664) took over.[11]

The comparative öfter largely lost its comparative sense and came to mean “quite often, now and then”, as in Goethe's trüget doch öfter der Schein “appearances are often deceptive”.[2][11] The genitive form öfters appears in the 17th century and is now regional, and oftmals in the 16th.[2][11]

Timeline

  • c. 765 – Old High German ofto appears in glosses.[9][8]
  • 15th century – The umlauted comparative öfter and superlative öftest appear.[2]
  • 16th century – oftmals appears.[2]
  • 17th century – öfters appears.[2]
  • 1664 – oftmalig is first recorded.[11]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. often, many times, repeatedly: Wir waren schon oft in Wien.[13][1]
  2. In many cases, quite frequently: So ein Fehler kommt oft vor.[13]
  3. At short intervals: Die Straßenbahn fährt hier sehr oft.[13]

Word family

  • öfter
  • öfters
  • oftmals
  • oftmalig
  • sooft

Usage notes

Oft und oft means “very often”.[13][4] The proverb Unverhofft kommt oft (“the unexpected often happens”) is recorded by Adelung.[12] The opposite is selten.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  3. ^ a b c d Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 13, 1192
  4. ^ a b Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 148
  5. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 667
  6. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 593
  8. ^ a b Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 6, 1142
  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. 245
  11. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  12. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  13. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag