Etymologically

1500s

Hungarian words first recorded in the 16th century

13 Hungarian words whose earliest known written record dates from the 16th century, earliest first. Words dated only to part of the century follow the ones with a year.

  1. kap

    1513

    It is probably an onomatopoeic word, first imitating the sound of a mouth snapping shut. It is closely tied to the family of koppant and kopog; the verbs of that family may even be derived from it…

  2. át

    1519

    It is of disputed origin. In the view of TESz and the MSzFE it is inherited from Old Hungarian ált (“across, through”), an adverb that goes back to the Ugric period, inherited from Proto-Ugric *ȣltɜ…

  3. elmond

    1527

    It is from Hungarian el- (“away; to the end”) + mond (“to say”), a verb with a preverb. The preverb was originally the adverb elé “forward”, formed from the stem of elő with the lative suffix ⟨-é⟩…

  4. találkozik

    1536

    It is from Hungarian talál (“to find”) + -kozik, a derivative of talál. The stem of the base verb is inherited from Proto-Uralic *tole- (“to come”), with the frequentative suffix ⟨-l⟩. Its relatives…

  5. tűnik

    1553

    Its origin is unknown; TESz, ÚESz and Zaicz agree that it is probably an old element of the Hungarian vocabulary, much older than its first records suggest. The final -ik is the ending of the…

  6. dolgozik

    1560

    It is from Hungarian dolog + -ozik, built on the stem ⟨dolg-⟩ of the noun dolog “work; matter”. TESz and ÚESz list it among the derivatives of the noun. The noun is a Slavic loan, from an early…

  7. biztos

    1563

    It is from Hungarian bízik (“to trust”) + -t + -s: the verb with the noun suffix ⟨-t⟩ and the adjective suffix ⟨-s⟩, which marks having something. The noun and the adjective take up different senses…

  8. pár

    1565

    It is probably borrowed from German Paar (“pair”), with paar (“paired”) and ein paar (“a few”); the German word goes back through Middle High German pār to Latin pār (“equal; companion; a pair”)…

  9. amikor

    1568

    It is a compound from Hungarian a- + mikor (“when?”): the first part is the demonstrative az “that”, the second the interrogative mikor. ÚESz explains how the Hungarian relative words arose: in a…

  10. persze

    1577

    It is a borrowing of a Latin phrase, borrowed from Latin per se (“by itself, of itself”), from per (“through, by”) and the reflexive pronoun sē (“itself”). In the Latin used in Hungary the phrase…

  11. ugye

    1585

    It is from Hungarian úgy (“so; indeed”) + -e (“interrogative particle”), a compound that grew together in speech from the first part in its modal sense “yes, indeed”, used to agree or affirm, and…

  12. ahogy

    1595

    It is a compound from Hungarian az + hogy, from the demonstrative az “that” and the relative adverb hogy “how”. It belongs to the relative pronouns and adverbs formed with the prefix a-, which is…

  13. sajnál

    1595

    It is a Hungarian derivative of a stem saj- that is not recorded on its own and whose origin is unknown. The ending is a cluster of verbal suffixes: the momentaneous -n and the frequentative -l or…

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