-heit

See also: heit

German

Alternative forms

• -keit

Etymology

From Middle High German -heit, from Old High German -heit, and ultimately from *haiduz (“personality, character, manner, way”). Cognate with Dutch -heid, English -hood, Danish -hed.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /-ˌhaɪ̯t/, [ˌhaɪ̯t]
• IPA^(key): /-aɪ̯t/

• Audio

  (file)

Suffix

-heit f (plural -heiten)

1. Converts an adjective into a noun and usually denotes an abstract quality of the adjectival root. It is often equivalent to the English suffixes -ty and -ness:

   ‎schön (“beautiful”) + ‎-heit → ‎Schönheit (“beauty”)

   ‎neu (“new”) + ‎-heit → ‎Neuheit (“novelty”)

2. Converts concrete nouns into abstract nouns:

   ‎Kind (“child”) + ‎-heit → ‎Kindheit (“childhood”)

   ‎Christ (“Christian”) + ‎-heit → ‎Christenheit (“Christendom”)

Usage notes

• 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 -el and -er behave irregularly: ‎eitel (“vain”) + ‎-heit → ‎Eitelkeit (“vanity”); but: ‎dunkel (“dark”) + ‎-heit → ‎Dunkelheit (“darkness”).
• Sometimes -ig- is added to the adjective and the suffix thus becomes -keit: ‎müde (“tired”) + ‎-heit → ‎Müdigkeit (“tiredness”). This is the general rule with adjectives in -haft and -los: ‎fehlerhaft (“faulty”) + ‎-heit → ‎Fehlerhaftigkeit (“faultiness”).

Derived terms

German terms suffixed with -heit

Further reading

• Friedrich Kluge (1883) “-heit”, in John Francis Davis, transl., Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, published 1891
• -heit on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de

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Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Middle Norwegian -heit, a borrow from Middle Low German -heit. Confer with Norwegian Bokmål -het and Swedish -het.

Suffix

-heit f

1. (colloquial) creates abstract nouns from adjectives
2. (rare) creates concrete nouns

Derived terms

Norwegian Nynorsk terms suffixed with -heit

References

• “-heit” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.