Etymologically
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weit

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Pronunciation

Forms

weit (strong nominative masculine singular weiter, comparative weiter, superlative am weitesten)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German wīt, inherited from Old High German wīt, inherited from Proto-Germanic *wīdaz (“wide”).[2][1][3] The same word is Old Saxon wīd, Old Norse víðr, Old English wīd and Old Frisian wīd, and today Dutch wijd, English wide and Swedish vid; it is not recorded in Gothic.[2][4][5]

Its further origin is disputed.[2][3] Kluge calls it unclear: a Sanskrit adjective meaning “straight” matches it in form, but its meanings do not fit and its own analysis is ambiguous.[2] Pfeifer, the Duden and Wahrig explain it as Proto-Indo-European *u̯i-ito- (“gone apart”), from the prefix Proto-Indo-European *u̯ī- (“apart”) of wider and Witwe and a participle of Proto-Indo-European *ei- (“to go”), the root of eilen; they compare Avestan vītay- (“going away”) and Latin vītō (“to avoid”).[4][6][7] The Grimms' dictionary also finds this the most likely explanation, though no convincing match outside Germanic has been shown.[5] Kroonen instead reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₁uei-dʰh₁-o- (“set apart”), with a prefix dissimilated from Proto-Indo-European *dui- (“in two”) and the root “to put”, the same combination as in dīvidō (“to divide”) and in the word for widow.[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German wīt appears in glosses from the end of the 8th century and in Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, meaning “wide, broad, large, spacious”.[8][9] All the Germanic languages agree on the basic meaning “extended in space”.[5]

Semantic evolution

Paul describes the oldest sense as “roomy”, seen from inside the thing (the opposite of eng), as with clothes and openings, and transferred to the mind (ein weites Gewissen, im weiteren Sinn).[10] Limited to one dimension it came to mean “far” (the opposite of kurz), first with verbs of motion (weit gehen, weit werfen) and then in phrases such as weit entfernt and das geht zu weit.[10] From the 14th century the adverb also strengthens a comparative: weit besser “far better”.[10]

Old High German wītī gave the noun Weite, and the verb erweitern appears at the beginning of the 16th century beside the older weitern.[4][6] Since the second half of the 20th century -weit has formed compounds such as weltweit, landesweit and europaweit, on the model of English -wide as in worldwide.[6] In seamen's language das Weit is the greatest width of a ship.[11][12]

Timeline

  • Late 8th century – Old High German wīt appears in glosses.[8]
  • 9th century – The noun wītī, the ancestor of Weite, is recorded.[4]
  • 14th century – weit is first used to strengthen a comparative.[10]
  • Early 16th century – erweitern “to widen” appears.[6][4]
  • 16th century – weitläufig and weitsichtig are formed.[6]
  • 2nd half of the 20th century – Compounds with -weit, modelled on English -wide, spread.[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. wide, broad, of large width: eine weite Öffnung, das Hemd ist schön weit.[12][1]
  2. Having a stated width: ein drei Zoll weites Rohr.[12]
  3. Long, extending over a great distance: eine weite Reise, mit weiten Schritten.[12][1]
  4. Advanced to a certain point in a process or development.[1]

Adverb

  1. far: weit hinausschwimmen, wie weit ist es bis dorthin?.[12][1]
  2. Far, much (before a comparative): weit besser.[10][1]

Word family

  • Weite
  • weiten
  • erweitern
  • weiter
  • weitaus
  • weitläufig
  • weitsichtig
  • weltweit
  • landesweit
  • meilenweit
  • himmelweit
  • sperrangelweit
  • wider
  • Witwe
  • eilen
  • English wide

Usage notes

Weit und breit means “far and wide, all around”;[13][10][12] das geht zu weit “that is going too far”.[13][10][12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. 980
  3. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  4. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  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. 28, 1229
  6. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  7. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 395
  10. ^ 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
  11. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 28, 1267
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  13. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf