Etymologically
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wenig

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈveːnɪç/[1]
  • Austria, Southern Germany, Switzerland: /ˈveːnɪk/[1]

Forms

wenig (strong nominative masculine singular weniger, comparative weniger or minder, superlative am wenigsten or am mindesten)[1] Middle High German had wênec beside weinic, and forms with -ei- last into the older New High German: Luther wrote both weinig and wenig.[2] The comparative minder and the superlative am mindesten continue Middle High German minder and minnest.[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German weinic, wênec, inherited from Old High German wēnag (“pitiable, wretched”), inherited from Proto-Germanic *wainagaz (“woeful, miserable”).[3][1][4] The same word is Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌹𐌽𐌰𐌷𐍃 (wainahs, “wretched”), Middle Low German wēnich and Middle Dutch weinich, today Dutch weinig.[3][5] The Gothic word occurs only once, and its reading is not certain.[2]

It is derived from the verb weinen, so it originally meant “to be wept over, pitiable”.[3][6][4] Pfeifer and Paul trace it further, like that verb, to the interjection of pain Proto-Germanic *wai, the source of weh.[5][7] The diphthong /ei/ is the original vowel; the /ē/ arose under the influence of Old High German wē (“woe”).[1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German wēnag is recorded from the 9th century, in the Muspilli, the Murbach Hymns, Otfrid, Notker and Williram, meaning “unhappy, wretched, poor, pitiable” and “small”.[8][5]

Semantic evolution

From “pitiable, wretched” the sense moved to “weak, small”, and already in Middle High German wenig became the opposite of viel.[5] The old meaning is still used poetically by Goethe;[5] Luther wrote du bist das wenigste unter den Völkern “you are the smallest of the peoples”.[7]

Middle High German mostly used the neuter as a noun, “a small quantity”, with a genitive (wenec brotes “little bread”); like viel, it later became an attributive adjective.[7] The present rule, uninflected in the singular (wenig Geld) and inflected in the plural (wenige Leute), is recent: Goethe and Lessing still wrote mit wenig Worten.[7] Ein wenig stresses that there is something, wenig that there is not much.[7] The adjective winzig is a derivative of wenig.[6][3]

Timeline

  • 9th century – Old High German wēnag “pitiable” is recorded.[3][5]
  • 1479 – Steinhöwel writes wienig, one of the south-western forms with a closed vowel.[2]
  • 16th century – Luther uses both weinig and wenig.[2]

Meanings

Pronoun and numeral

  1. (singular, often uninflected) little, not much: wenig Zeit haben, Das ist sehr wenig.[9][1]
  2. (plural) few, not many: Nur wenige Gäste blieben bis Mitternacht.[9][1]
  3. (singular, inflected) A small number of single things: Er hat nur weniges davon gelesen.[9]
  4. ein wenig: a little, a bit: ein wenig Salz.[7][10]

Adverb

  1. Not often, not much: Sie schläft wenig.[9]
  2. Not very, only slightly: eine wenig bekannte Sängerin.[9][10]

Word family

  • wenigstens
  • winzig
  • weinen
  • weh
  • minder

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 29, 1
  3. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 982
  4. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d e f Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  6. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 928
  7. ^ a b c d e f Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 379
  9. ^ a b c d e 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