An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/meist

by Friedrich Kluge

meist, adjective and adverb, ‘most, mostly,’ from Middle High German meist, adjective, ‘greatest, most,’ adverb, ‘mostly, at best, very specially’ (a superlative of the comparative mehr, Middle High German mêr); compare Old High German meist, Gothic maists, from the Old High German posit. mihhil, Gothic mikils, ‘great.’ Gothic ma-ists has the old superlative suffix ist like Gothic bat-ists, Old High German beȥȥ-ist; from the stem ma- the Gothic comparative ma-iza is also formed. The forms of comparison seemed to be based on the Gothic adjectival stem mêrs, Old High German mâ-ri, ‘projecting.’ Compare also Old Saxon mêst, Dutch meest, Anglo-Saxon mœ̂st (mâst), English most.