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Origin and history of yonder

yonder(adv.)

c. 1300, "at a distance, over there, at or in that (more or less distant) place," with comparative suffix -er (2) + yond (adv.) "at a distance, over there." In some cases from yond (adj.).

Cognate with Middle Low German ginder, Middle Dutch gender, Dutch ginder, Gothic jaindre. Now replaced except in poetic usage by ungrammatical use of that.

yonder(adj.)

"over there; that or those," referring to persons or things at a distance, late 14c., probably from yond (adj.) or yonder (adv.).

Also from late 14c. as "farther away, remoter" (yonder side). Hence yonder (pron.) "that one (or those) over there" (late 14c.). Hence also Middle English the yonder Greece for Ionia, the cities on the eastern Aegean coast; yonder Spain, meaning roughly Portugal.

also from late 14c.

Entries linking to yonder

yond(adv., prep.)

Middle English, from Old English geond "beyond, at a distance, over there; in or over every part of, beyond;" related to geon (see yon). Obsolete; compare beyond. Related: Yondward "in that direction; away."

yon(adj., pron.)

Middle English, from Old English geon "that or those," referring to objects at a distance, "that one (or those) over there," from Proto-Germanic *jaino-, source also of Old Frisian jen, Old Norse enn, Old High German ener, Middle Dutch ghens, German jener, Gothic jains "that, you."

This is reconstructed to be from PIE pronominal stem *i- (source also of Sanskrit ena-, third person pronoun, anena "that;" Latin idem "the same," id "it, that one;" Old Church Slavonic onu "he;" Lithuanian ans "he").

By late 14c. as "farther, more remote" in reference to another. As an adverb from late 15c., a shortening of yonder.

-er(2)

comparative suffix, from Old English -ra (masc.), -re (fem., neuter), from Proto-Germanic *-izon (cognates: Gothic -iza, Old Saxon -iro, Old Norse -ri, Old High German -iro, German -er), from PIE *-yos-, comparative adjective suffix. Originally also with umlaut change in stem, but this was mostly lost in Old English by historical times and has now vanished (except in better and elder).

For most comparatives of one or two syllables, use of -er seems to be fading as the oral element in our society relies on more before adjectives to express the comparative; thus prettier is more pretty, cooler is more cool [Barnhart].
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    Trends of yonder

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    galaxy
    See yonder, lo, the Galaxyë Which men clepeth the Milky Wey, For hit is whyt....
    gender
    c. 1300, "kind, sort, class, a class or kind of persons or things sharing certain traits," from Old French gendre, genre "kind, species; character; gender" (12c., Modern French genre), from stem of Latin genus (genitive generis) "race, stock, family; kind, rank, order; species,"
    that
    Old English þæt, "that, so that, after that," neuter singular demonstrative pronoun ("A Man's a Man for a' that"), relative pronoun ("O thou that hearest prayer"), and demonstrative adjective ("Look at that caveman go!"), corresponding to masc. se, fem. seo. From Proto-Germanic *
    contrite
    "broken in spirit by a sense of guilt, conscience-stricken and resolved to not sin again," c. 1300, from Old French contrit (12c.) and directly from Latin contritus, literally "worn out, ground to pieces," in Late Latin "penitent," past participle of conterere "to grind," from as
    cinema
    1899, "movie hall," from French cinéma, shortened from cinématographe "device for projecting a series of photographs in rapid succession so as to produce the illusion of movement," coined 1890s by Lumiere brothers, who invented the technology, from Latinized form of Greek kinēmat
    Peter
    masc. proper name, 12c., from Old English Petrus (genitive Pet(e)res, dative Pet(e)re), from Latin Petrus, from Greek Petros, literally "stone, rock" (see petrous), a translation of Syriac kefa "stone" (Latinized as Cephas), the nickname Jesus gave to apostle Simon Bar-Jona (Matt
    deal
    "a part or portion," Middle English del, from from Old English dæl "a part of a whole, a share;" with qualification (great, etc.), "an extent, degree, quantity, amount," from Proto-Germanic *dailaz (source also of Old Norse deild, Old Frisian del "part; juridical district," Dutch
    peculiar
    mid-15c., "belonging exclusively to one person," also "special, particular," from Old French peculiaire and directly from Latin peculiaris "of one's own (property)," from peculium "private property," literally "property in cattle" (in ancient times the most important form of prop
    bunting
    "light woolen stuff loosely woven, flag-material," 1742, of uncertain origin; perhaps from a dialectal survival of Middle English bonting "sifting," verbal noun from bonten "to sift," because cloth was used for sifting grain. The Middle English verb is via Old French, from Vulgar
    imagination
    "faculty of the mind which forms and manipulates images," mid-14c., ymaginacion, from Old French imaginacion "concept, mental picture; hallucination," from Latin imaginationem (nominative imaginatio) "imagination, a fancy," noun of action from past participle stem of imaginari "t

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