An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Meer

by Friedrich Kluge

Meer, neuter, ‘ocean, sea,’ from Middle High German męr, neuter, Old High German męri, earlier mari, masculine and neuter, ‘ocean’; compare Old Saxon męri, feminine, Dutch meer, neuter, Anglo-Saxon męre, masculine, English mere (to which merman, mermaid, are allied), Old Icelandic marr, masculine, Gothic marei, feminine (and *mar, neuter, preserved in the compound mari-saivs, ‘ocean’). The common Teutonic word for ‘ocean,’ primary Teutonic mari, neuter (or mori, recorded by Pliny as a Cimbrian form), which is partly common to the West Aryan tribes (so too Latin lacus, Old Irish loch, equivalent to Old Low German lagu, ‘ocean’); Latin mare, neuter, Old Slovenian morjc, neuter, ‘ocean,’ Lithuanian máres, ‘Kurisches Haff,’ Old Irish muir (from mori), ‘ocean’; to these are allied Greek Αμφίμαρος, ‘son of Poseidon,’ as well as ἀμάρα, feminine, ‘trench, conduit’ (compare Old Frisian mar, ‘trench, pond’)?. These cognates are usually connected with the Aryan root mar, ‘to die’ (compare Mord, Latin morior), so that the ocean was named in “contrast to the living vegetation” of the mainland, just as in Indian also marus, ‘desert,’ is referred to the root mar, ‘to die’; this, however, is no more probable than the derivation of Mann from the root men, ‘to think.’ Compare Marsch and Moor.