niet

niet¹ not

Pronunciation

• /nit/^[1]
• Often: /ni/^[1]

Forms

niet^[1] Middle Dutch also has nicht, which kept the guttural; it occurs into the 16th century and survives in West Flemish nichtemeer “no more”.^[2][3] Many dialects say nie when the word is weakly stressed.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle Dutch niet, earlier niwet, inherited from Old Dutch niewiht (“nothing”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *naiwwiht.^[4][1][5] It was formed from the negative particle Proto-Germanic *ne (“not”) (see nee) and a noun that survives as wicht “creature”, whose first meaning must have been “thing”.^[4][6][7] The WNT and Wiktionary analyse the first part as nio (“never”), a contraction of the negation with Proto-Germanic *aiw- (“ever”), so that the whole meant “not ever a thing”.^[3][1] Without the element for “ever”, the same pair appears as Gothic 𐌽𐌹 𐍅𐌰𐌹𐌷𐍄𐍃 (ni waihts, “nothing”).^[4][3]

The same compound is Old Saxon neowiht, Old High German niowiht (modern German nicht), Old Frisian nāwet (modern West Frisian net “not” and neat “nothing”) and Old English nāwiht, whose descendants are English naught, nought and not.^[4][8][9] The Old Dutch form was contracted by weakening of its last syllable, through niewet, to the modern form, just as iowiht (“something”) became iet (see iets).^[4] The negative particle goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ne (“not”).^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word was at first a noun, and before the first written records it had already become the pronoun “nothing”.^[4] Its oldest record, in a charm of about 891–900, asks nedredes thuneuuet, “do you fear nothing?”^[4][5] In the 10th-century Wachtendonck Psalms it translates Latin non “not”, and appears in fur nieuuehte “for nothing”.^[5][4] With a transitive verb it could be read as either “nothing” or “not”, and that is how it became a negating adverb.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In Middle Dutch niwet still meant “nothing” and nit “not”, both in the Bernardus translation of about 1240, and niet soon became the usual negation, as in jof en wilde hi niet comen “or if he would not come” (1253).^[4] At first it reinforced the old negative particle en, ne, which it later replaced;^[1][5] English not went the same way.^[1][5] As a pronoun “nothing” it went out of free use, and niets took its place.^[3][4] It lives on in fixed phrases such as tenietdoen and in het niet zinken “to fade into insignificance”.^[4][12]

From niet des North Netherlands speech made nietes “it is not”, used to contradict, and welles “it is” was formed after it.^[3] As a noun, een niet came to mean a lottery ticket that wins nothing, recorded only after Kiliaan.^[8][9] With the Dutch lotteries this noun reached German through Hamburg in the 18th century as Niete, and Danish nitte and Swedish nit followed.^[8][13]

The negation lives on in Afrikaans nie, and was taken into Negerhollands, Berbice Dutch, Skepi Dutch, Javindo and Petjo.^[13][1]

Timeline

• 891–900 – Old Dutch niewiht “nothing” is first recorded, in a charm.^[4][5]
• 901–1000 – The Wachtendonck Psalms use it as a negation, translating Latin non.^[14][5]
• c. 1240 – Middle Dutch niwet “nothing” and nit “not” appear in the Bernardus translation.^[4][6]
• 1253 – Niet is used as a plain negation in a charter.^[4]
• 1548 – Niet as a pronoun “nothing” is still in use: niet en gaed ter weereld vuer paeis en vrede “nothing in the world comes before peace”.^[3]
• 18th century – The lottery word passes into German as Niete.^[8]

Meanings

Adverb

1. not: negates a verb, a clause or a single word: ze komt vandaag niet.^[1][3]

Noun

1. (het niet) nothingness, nothing, mainly in the phrase in het niet zinken (vallen, verzinken) bij: to amount to nothing beside someone or something.^[12]
2. (de niet) A lottery ticket that wins no prize.^[12][15]

Word family

• niets
• nietig
• niettemin
• niettegenstaande
• deugniet
• tenietdoen
• nietes

niet² staple

Forms

niet f (plural nieten, diminutive nietje n)^[1]

Etymology

The staple is probably borrowed from German Niet (“rivet”),^[1] which continues Middle High German niet (“broad-headed nail”).^[8][3] The German noun belongs with a verb meaning “to strike, to clinch”: Middle Low German nēden, Old High German hniotan (German nieten) and Old Norse hnjóða (“to strike, hammer, rivet”), and Middle Dutch had the same verb as nieden.^[8][3][16] The WNT points out that a native word would have kept the d of that verb, whereas Dutch has t, as also in the verb neten that Plantijn (1573) and Kiliaan (1599) record.^[3] Wiktionary thinks a direct derivation from the Middle Dutch verb less likely.^[1] Southern Dutch has a related verb nijden with the vowel ij, from which West Flemish has nijdnagel “rivet”.^[3]

De Vries places the whole group under the stem Proto-Indo-European *kneu-, also seen in Ancient Greek κνύθος (knúthos, “small thorn”).^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant a rivet, a nail beaten flat on the other side.^[3][8] In 1911 the WNT noted nijt for the small rivet in a pair of scissors in Groningen, and nietje for the little metal pin that holds sheets of paper together.^[3] The rivet word, from Dutch or from German, was borrowed into Danish nitte, Swedish nit, Finnish niitti and Estonian neet, and Papiamentu took nit from Dutch.^[13][1]

Timeline

• 1535 – The noun “rivet” is first quoted in the WNT.^[3]
• 1573 – Plantijn records the verb neten “to rivet”.^[3]
• 1599 – Kiliaan records neten and the southern nijden.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A staple, a bent wire fastener for paper, usually called by the diminutive nietje.^[1][3]
2. (regional, dated) A rivet.^[3][8][13]

Word family

• nieten
• nietje
• nietmachine