schwierig

Forms

schwierig (strong nominative masculine singular schwieriger, comparative schwieriger, superlative am schwierigsten)^[1] The older spelling was schwürig, and some writers distinguished schwürig “festering” from schwierig “difficult”.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German swiric (“full of sores, festering”), also sweric,^[3][4] derived from swer (“pain, swelling, ulcer”), the noun belonging to schwären (“to fester”).^[5][6][7] Kluge also gives Early New High German forms and Middle Low German swerich.^[5] That verb continues Proto-Germanic *sweraną.^[1][8]

Kluge explains the modern sense as a reinterpretation: used figuratively for “rebellious” from the 17th century, the adjective lost its link with its base and was drawn to schwer (“heavy, difficult”), and its meaning was reshaped accordingly.^[5][6][2] Wiktionary stresses that the two adjectives are unrelated.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Middle High German swiric glosses Latin ulcerosus “full of sores”, and the word is found in Heinrich der Teichner (1350–1365).^[3][4] Kluge dates the adjective to the 15th century.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The old sense “festering” lasted into the 18th and 19th centuries: Kramer's Italian dictionary of 1702 still has ein schwüriger Finger.^[2][6][7] From the 16th century the word was applied to moods and attitudes, “irritable, discontented, rebellious”, and then to circumstances, as in schwürige Zeiten (1660).^[6][9] Goethe's Egmont still has the people becoming höchst schwierig “most unruly”.^[10]

As a trait of character it came to mean “touchy, hard to handle”, as in Goethe's Keine Ferne macht dich schwierig and Hofmannsthal's comedy Der Schwierige.^[9] From the 18th century it was applied to things and tasks, “hard to carry out”, under the influence of schwer, as in Schiller's Maria Stuart, though Adelung in 1798 still found this use unusual in High German.^[9][11] Duden dates the general sense “difficult” to about 1800.^[7]

The noun Schwierigkeit meant “festering” in 1572 and “tumult” in 1660 before it took the sense “difficulty” in the 18th century.^[6]

Timeline

• 1350–1365 – Middle High German swiric is used by Heinrich der Teichner.^[4]
• 16th century – The adjective is used for discontented, rebellious moods.^[6][9]
• 1572 – Schwierigkeit is recorded in the sense “festering”.^[6]
• 1660 – schwürige Zeiten “troubled times”.^[6][9]
• 1702 – Kramer still records schwürig “festering”.^[2]
• c. 1800 – The general sense “difficult” prevails.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Difficult, hard, requiring great effort or skill: Die letzte Matheaufgabe war ziemlich schwierig.^[10][1]
2. Delicate, tricky, calling for great care: Das Land steckt in einer schwierigen wirtschaftlichen Lage.^[10]
3. Of a person, hard to deal with or to please: Der neue Mitbewohner ist ziemlich schwierig.^[10][1]
4. (obsolete) Rebellious, unruly, as in Goethe and Schiller.^[10]

Word family

• Schwierigkeit

Related words

• schwären
• Geschwür

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 15, 2620
3. ^ a b Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 1381
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
5. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 836
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 767
8. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 832
9. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
10. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
11. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 3, 1750