An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Lenz

by Friedrich Kluge

Lenz, masculine (Bavarian längess, längsing, Swiss langsi), from the equivalent Middle High German lęnze, masculine and feminine, ‘spring’ (from the variants langeȥ, langeȥe); Old High German lęnzo, lęnzī̆n, langiȥ, masculine; the loss of the g is normal, as in Bliß and Runzel. Compare Dutch lente, Anglo-Saxon lęncten, masculine, ‘spring,’ English Lent. This West Teutonic word was probably the term for spring, and Tacitus in the Germania seems to have a dim idea that it was used by the Teutons (Old Icelandic vár, Middle English and Scotch wêr, North Frisian ûrs, wos, represent the North Teutonic term primitively allied to Latin vêr, Greek ἔαρ, Sanscrit vasar); for the other observations of Tacitus on the Old Teutonic divisions of time, compare Herbst (also Frühling, which has supplanted the old word Lenz in most of the modern dialects of Upper Germany; see an old Aryan term for Lenz under Jahr). The word is peculiar to Teutonic; it has not been authenticated in the non-Teutonic languages; its primary meaning is therefore dubious. Some etymologists, misled simply by the similarity of sound, have connected Lenz with lang (Gothic laggs), and opined that it was so named from the lengthening of the days; such a derivation is at all events uncertain.