Dutch words from German
9 Dutch words with German in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
belegeren
According to De Vries & De Tollenaere it is borrowed from German belegern, the form used by Luther and already found in Middle High German, which German replaced with ⟨belagern⟩ in the 18th century…
etsen
It is borrowed from German ätzen (“to etch”), taken over in the 16th century, when the German verb was spelled ⟨etzen⟩; the oldest Dutch record has the same spelling. The German verb goes back to…
geheim
It is borrowed from German geheim, taken over in the 16th century. In late Middle High German geheim meant “belonging to the house”, then “familiar, intimate” and finally “hidden from the outside…
gnoe
Van Veen & Van der Sijs and Van der Sijs's loanword dictionary take it from German: borrowed from German Gnu. The WNT holds that the language Dutch took it from is uncertain. It goes back to…
herinneren
It is borrowed from German erinnern (“to remind”), borrowed in the second half of the 16th century, with the German prefix replaced by her-. The German verb is first known from Luther's Bible…
hoera
It is borrowed from German hurra, a cry of the Prussian soldiers that became very popular in German and other European languages during the wars against Napoleon (1813–1815). The Woordenboek der…
niet
1. It is inherited from Middle Dutch niet, earlier niwet, inherited from Old Dutch niewiht (“nothing”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *naiwwiht. It was formed from the negative particle…
niks
It is probably borrowed from German nix, a colloquial and dialectal form of nichts (“nothing”). The Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal finds it in the Netherlands from the 18th century, perhaps…
oproer
The EWN takes it as a noun from Dutch oproeren (“to stir someone up to something”), a verb found from 1487–1510 and formed from Dutch op + roeren in its general sense “to set in motion”. De Vries…