An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/fern

by Friedrich Kluge

fern, adverb, ‘far, distantly, remotely,’ from Middle High German vërrene, vërren, vërne, Old High German vërrana, vërranân, adverb, ‘from afar’; the adverb in answer to the question ‘where’? is vërre in Middle High German and vërro in Old High German. The adjectival form in Middle High German is vërre, in Old High German vër, which are probably derived from the old adverb. The remaining Teutonic branches have no old originally adjective; as an adverb, however, we meet with Gothic faírra, which is also a preposition, ‘distant, away from,’ Old Icelandic fjarre, Anglo-Saxon feor, English far, Old Saxon fërr. Besides these words relating to distance in space, Old Teutonic has also allied terms for distance in time; Gothic fairneis, ‘old, in the preceding year,’ Old Saxon firn, ‘preceding, passed away (of years),’ Old High German firni, Middle High German virne, ‘old’ (see under Firnewein); akin also to Old Icelandic forn, ‘old,’ Middle High German vorn, ‘earlier, formerly,’ with a differently graded vowel. To the Teutonic stem fer-, for- from pre-Teutonic per, pṛ, are allied Greek πέρᾶ, ‘further,’ πέρᾶν, ‘on the other side,’ Armenian heri, ‘distant,’ Sanscrit pára-s, ‘more, remote,’ paramás, ‘remotest, highest,’ parás, adverb, ‘far of, in the distance.’ The cognates of Aryan per- have too great and involved a ramification to be fully explained here. See firn.