-heit

See also: heit

German

Alternative forms

• -keit

Etymology

From 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

• 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

-heit f (genitive -heit, 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 -ness, -th, -ty, -dom:

   ‎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 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

	singular			plural
	indef.	def.	noun	def.	noun
nominative	eine	die	-heit	die	-heiten
genitive	einer	der	-heit	der	-heiten
dative	einer	der	-heit	den	-heiten
accusative	eine	die	-heit	die	-heiten

Declension of -heit [feminine]

Derived terms

German terms suffixed with -heit

References

1. 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

• 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

Etymology

From 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

-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.