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An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/meist

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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.