MT= Muke Tever

MT> And "nigh" itself is just the positive of a series of familiar adjectives:

I said that. :)

RU = Rene Uittenbogaard

RU> These look a lot like the German words:
RU> It is curious to see that these superlatives have changed their meaning
RU> ("nearest" -> "next") in both German and English.

It's not really a change in meaning, though, merely of focus; a
connotational change, not a denotational one. When
speaking spatially, after all, the nearest is the next, and vice versa.


RU> The meaning of "a bit" etc. has become quite different from the meaning
RU> of the verb it was originally derived from, but it fascinates me to see
RU> that the same etymology occurs in English, German, *and* Dutch.

Perhaps the derivation occurred before they split, or perhaps they
influenced each other in the process?

-Marcos