-heit
See also: heit
German
editAlternative forms
editEtymology
editFrom Middle High German -heit, from Old High German -heit, from Proto-West Germanic *-haidu, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *haiduz (“personality, character, manner, way”).[1] Cognate with Dutch -heid, English -hood, Danish -hed.
Pronunciation
edit- IPA(key): /-haɪ̯t/, [haɪ̯t]
- The suffix has secondary stress when it follows an unstressed syllable and often also when it precedes one. When it is entirely unstressed, the /h/ may be unpronounced in common speech.
Audio: (file)
Suffix
edit-heit f (genitive -heit, plural -heiten)
- Converts an adjective into a noun and usually denotes an abstract quality of the adjectival root. It is often equivalent to the English suffixes -ness, -th, -ty, -dom:
- Converts concrete nouns into abstract nouns:
- Kind (“child”) + -heit → Kindheit (“childhood”)
- Christ (“Christian”) + -heit → Christenheit (“Christendom”)
Usage notes
edit- While -heit is the normal form of this suffix, it becomes -keit after certain adjectival suffixes. These are -bar, -ig, -isch, -lich, -sam. For example: nützlich (“useful”) + -heit → Nützlichkeit (“utility”).
- Adjectives ending in unstressed -el, -er usually take -keit as well: eitel (“vain”) + -heit → Eitelkeit (“vanity”), mager (“meagre”) + -heit → Magerkeit (“meagreness”). However, there are a handful of exceptions, e.g. Dunkelheit (“darkness”), Sicherheit (“safety”).
- Sometimes -ig- is added to the adjective and the suffix thus becomes -keit. This is the general rule with adjectives in -haft and -los: fehlerhaft (“faulty”) + -heit → Fehlerhaftigkeit (“faultiness”). There is also a fairly large number of other adjectives that follow this pattern: müde (“tired”) + -heit → Müdigkeit (“tiredness”). Two forms may exist for some adjectives, occasionally with a semantic distinction, e.g. Neuheit (“novelty”) versus Neuigkeit (“news”).
Declension
editDeclension of -heit [feminine]
Derived terms
editReferences
edit- ^ Friedrich Kluge (1989) “-heit”, in Elmar Seebold, editor, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache [Etymological Dictionary of the German Language] (in German), 22nd edition, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN.
Further reading
edit- Friedrich Kluge (1883) “-heit”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891
- -heit on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia de
Norwegian Nynorsk
editEtymology
editFrom Middle Norwegian -heit, a borrow from Middle Low German -heit. Compare with Norwegian Bokmål -het, Swedish -het and Danish -hed. Ultimately from Proto-Germanic *haiduz.
Suffix
edit-heit f
- (colloquial) creates abstract nouns from adjectives
- (rare) creates concrete nouns
Derived terms
editReferences
edit- “-heit” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
Categories:
- German terms inherited from Middle High German
- German terms derived from Middle High German
- German terms inherited from Old High German
- German terms derived from Old High German
- German terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- German terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- German terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- German terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- German terms with IPA pronunciation
- German terms with audio pronunciation
- German lemmas
- German suffixes
- German noun-forming suffixes
- German feminine suffixes
- Norwegian Nynorsk terms inherited from Middle Norwegian
- Norwegian Nynorsk terms derived from Middle Norwegian
- Norwegian Nynorsk terms derived from Middle Low German
- Norwegian Nynorsk terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Norwegian Nynorsk lemmas
- Norwegian Nynorsk suffixes
- Norwegian Nynorsk feminine suffixes
- Norwegian Nynorsk colloquialisms
- Norwegian Nynorsk terms with rare senses