Etymology
Neuter singular form of viel (“much, many”).
Pronoun
vieles
- much, many things
Vieles hat sich in den letzten Jahren verändert.- Much has changed over the past years.
1846, Franz Xaver Maßl, Erklärung der Heiligen Schriften des Neuen Testamentes. Eilfter Band. Erste Abtheilung, Regensburg, page 113:Die Kirche erklärt mit Recht als Selige im Himmel diejenigen, welche des Evangeliums wegen Vieles gelitten haben [...]- (please add an English translation of this quotation)
Usage notes
- Formal standard German distinguishes the indefinite pronouns viel and vieles, both translating as “much”. More precisely, however, the former means “much of one sort of thing”, whereas the latter means “many different things”. For example: Ich habe viel gegessen. → “I ate a large quantity of food”. Ich habe vieles gegessen. → “I ate a great variety of foods”. The distinction may be lost in colloquial German, where vieles is seldom used at all.
- Vieles changes to vielem in the dative case. A genitive form does not exist. It needs to be paraphrased by means of the preposition von.