An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/sauber

by Friedrich Kluge

sauber, adjective, ‘neat, clean, nice, pretty,’ from Middle High German sûber, sûver, ‘neat, clean, pretty,’ Old High German sûbar, sûbiri; Old Saxon *sûƀri, Dutch zuiver, Anglo-Saxon sŷfre, ‘clean, purified, spotless’; Gothic *sûbri- is wanting. Since the agreement of the OWest Teutonic dialects proves the early existence of the Teutonic word, the assumption that it was borrowed from Latin sobrius or Greek σῦφαρ cannot be maintained.