Etymologically
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viel

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Pronunciation

Forms

viel (comparative mehr, superlative am meisten)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German vil, inherited from Old High German filu, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *felu, inherited from Proto-Germanic *felu.[2][1] The same word is Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐌻𐌿 (filu), Old Norse fjǫl- (only in compounds), Old English fela, Old Saxon filu and Dutch veel.[2][3][4] The adverb is the neuter of a u-stem adjective of which Germanic kept only remains, and it was at first a noun “a great amount”, taking a genitive.[2][3][5]

Outside Germanic it matches Ancient Greek πολύς (polús, “much”), Old Irish il (“much”) and, with another formation, Latin plūs (“more”).[2][3][1] The adjective was Proto-Indo-European *pélh₁us, from the root Proto-Indo-European *pleh₁- (“to fill”), so that its first meaning was “filling”; voll, Fülle and füllen go back to the same root.[4][1][2][6] Kroonen explains the vowel difference between the Greek and Gothic words by an ablauting paradigm, and finds the zero grade preserved in Old Frisian fule and Dutch dialect ⟨veul⟩.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German filu is found from the 8th century, used as a noun “much, great” and as an adverb “very, much, quite”.[7][8] It often takes a genitive, as in Otfrid's filu manno “many men”, and once in the Hildebrandslied it stands for a dative: miti … sinero degano filu “with many of his warriors”.[7]

Semantic evolution

In the old language the thing counted stood in the genitive: Middle High German vil goldes “much gold”, vil liute “many people”, and Luther still wrote viel Volks.[5] Remnants last into modern times, as Lessing's viel Glücks, and above all in viel Aufhebens machen “to make a great fuss”.[5][3] With nominatives and accusatives viel became an indefinite pronoun or numeral (viel Geld), with verbs an adverb (viel arbeiten), and finally it took adjective endings (viele Leute, vielen Dank).[3]

Derivatives include vielfach and vielfältig (15th century), vielerlei (16th century) and Vielfalt, a back-formation of the late 18th century from vielfältig, coined in contrast to Einfalt.[3] vielleicht “perhaps” is Middle High German vil līhte “very easily, probably”, and vielmehr “rather” was joined together in the 15th century from Middle High German vil mēre “to a still higher degree”.[3]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German filu is first recorded.[2][7]
  • 15th century – vielfach, vielfältig and vielmehr are recorded.[3]
  • 16th century – vielerlei is recorded.[3]
  • Late 18th century – Vielfalt is formed.[3]

Meanings

Pronoun

  1. much, many: a large amount or number of something (viel Geld, viele Leute).[9][1]
  2. Vieles: many different things (er weiß vieles).[9]

Adverb

  1. A lot, much (viel arbeiten).[9][1]
  2. often.[10]
  3. With a comparative: much, far.[10]

Word family

  • vielleicht
  • vielerlei
  • vielfach
  • vielfältig
  • Vielfalt
  • vielmehr
  • vielmals

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 959
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  6. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  7. ^ a b c Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 3, 228
  8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 102
  9. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  10. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org