ohne

Forms

ohne (preposition with the accusative; conjunction with dass or zu and the infinitive)^[2][1] The vowel was long /aː/ in Middle High German āne.^[3] The change to /oː/ began in Central German in the second half of the 14th century and spread from there;^[3][4] Upper German dialects kept ahne, ahn.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German āne, inherited from Old High German ānu, inherited from Proto-Germanic *ēnu (“without”).^[5][6][1] Old High German also had āno and āna.^[7][3] The same word is Old Saxon āno, Old Norse án and Old Frisian ōne, while Gothic 𐌹𐌽𐌿 (inu, “without”) shows another vowel grade.^[5][3][8]

Outside Germanic it matches Ancient Greek ἄνευ (áneu, “without, far from”), and perhaps Tocharian A āñu (“end, rest”).^[5][3] Kluge notes that the reconstructed forms look like locatives of u-stems; if the Tocharian noun is the base, the starting sense would have been “at the stopping”.^[5] Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₂ēnu for the North and West Germanic forms and explains the short vowel of the Gothic word by its unstressed position.^[8] Pfeifer considers a link with the negative prefix Proto-Indo-European *n̥- of un-.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German ānu is recorded from glosses of about 765, and then in Isidor, the Benedictine Rule, the Muspilli, Otfrid and Notker.^[6][7] It meant “without”, but also “except, besides” and, after a comparative, “than”.^[7][6]

Semantic evolution

In Old and Middle High German the word was also an adverb used like an adjective, ānu wesan “to be without”, with a genitive of the thing lacking;^[3] from the Early New High German Zweifels ohne sein (15th century) comes zweifelsohne.^[3][9] When the genitive was dropped, es ist nicht ohne (16th century) came to mean “there is something in it”; in the 19th century er ist nicht ohne “he is not to be underestimated” followed.^[3][9]

As a preposition it took the accusative from the beginning, but a genitive or a dative was also possible in older German.^[3][9] The particle is not found even in Old English, and it is now lacking in Dutch, the Scandinavian languages and part of Low German.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 765 – Old High German ānu appears in glosses.^[6]
• 2nd half of the 14th century – The form ōne with /oː/ appears in Central German.^[3][4]
• 15th century – Zweifels ohne is recorded, the source of zweifelsohne.^[3]
• 16th century – Es ist nicht ohne “there is something in it” is recorded (Luther).^[3][9]
• 19th century – Jemand ist nicht ohne “someone is not to be underestimated” appears.^[9]

Meanings

Preposition

1. without: not having, free from: ohne Geld, ohne Angst.^[2][1]
2. Without something that normally belongs to it: ein Hemd ohne Kragen.^[2]
3. Not counting, excluding: ohne die Lehrer waren es dreißig.^[2][9]

Conjunction

1. With dass or zu and the infinitive: without doing something: Er ging, ohne sich umzudrehen.^[2][1]

Word family

• ohnehin
• zweifelsohne
• ohnegleichen

Related words

• un-
• ungefähr

Usage notes

Ohne mich! means “count me out”.^[2] Nicht ohne sein (colloquial) is said of something or someone not to be underestimated.^[2][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 13, 1210
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 d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b c Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 39
8. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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