Low Dutch

English

Alternative forms

• Low-Dutch

Proper noun

Low Dutch

1. (archaic) Low German.
   • 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], “The Emperor of Lilliput, Attended by Several of the Nobility, Come to See the Author in His Confinement. […]”, in Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput), page 30:

     There were ſeveral of his Prieſts and Lawyers preſent, (as I conjectured by their habits) who were commanded to addreſs themſelves to me, and I ſpoke to them in as many Languages as I had the leaſt ſmattering of, which were High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spaniſh, Italian, and Lingua Franca; but all to no purpoſe.

   • 1815, in: The British Review, and London Critical Journal. Vol. VI, London, p. 476ff., here p. 510:

     The German is again sub-divided into South German or Gothic, Middle German, and Low German, or Low Dutch. [...] The Low Dutch is spoken by the people of Lower Saxony, Friesland, Holland, and Belgium.

   • 1877, Ella S. Armitage, The Childhood of the English Nation or the Beginnings of English History, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., page 8f.:

     The Teutonic family is divided into three great branches: the High-Dutch, the Low-Dutch, and the Scandinavian; [...] To the Low-Dutch, who dwelt mostly in the low countries near the mouths of the rivers flowing into the German Ocean, belong many of the North Germans, the Frisians, Hollanders, and our own English forefathers. [...] From the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Oder the whole coast was inhabited by Low-Dutch folk, Saxons, and Frisians, who all contributed to the hosts which set out to win the fair lands of Britain.

   • 1879, Edward A. Freeman, The Origin of the English Nation (Harper's Half-Hour Series), New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, page 42:

     At Hamburg, too, High-Dutch is the fashionable language; but I know that, a generation back, people of the highest position and education spoke Low-Dutch in their own houses, though of course they could also speak High-Dutch when it was wanted.

   • 1991, Sarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman, Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, page 321:

     Low Dutch means both Low Frankish (or Netherlandish) and Low Saxon (or “Low German”).

Synonyms

• Low German, Netherdutch

Antonyms

• High Dutch (High-Dutch)

Meronyms

• Low Franconian, Low Frankish
• Low Saxon

Adjective

Low Dutch

1. (archaic) Low German.
   • 1876 (new. ed.; 1st ed. 1872), Edward A. Freeman, Freeman's Historical Course for Schools: General Sketch of History. Adapted for American Students, new edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, page 162:

     It was only towards the East, where Germany bordered on the Slavonic nations, that the Empire had much chance of extending itself. The Wends, the Slavonic people along the south coast of the Baltic, in Mecklenburg and Pomerania and the other lands beyond the Elbe, gradually became Christians and were joined on to Germany, and the Low-Dutch language gradually displaced the Slavonic.

   • 1877, Ella S. Armitage, The Childhood of the English Nation or the Beginnings of English History, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., page 8f.:

     The Teutonic family is divided into three great branches: the High-Dutch, the Low-Dutch, and the Scandinavian; [...] To the Low-Dutch, who dwelt mostly in the low countries near the mouths of the rivers flowing into the German Ocean, belong many of the North Germans, the Frisians, Hollanders, and our own English forefathers. [...] From the mouth of the Rhine to the mouth of the Oder the whole coast was inhabited by Low-Dutch folk, Saxons, and Frisians, who all contributed to the hosts which set out to win the fair lands of Britain.

Translations

Translations

German: niederdeutsch (de)

References

• “Low Dutch”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “Low Dutch, n. and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.