unseretwegen

German

Alternative forms

• unsretwegen (somewhat less common)
• unsertwegen
• unserntwegen, unsrentwegen, unserentwegen (all archaic)

Etymology

Previously more common as unsertwegen, the form unseretwegen likely became dominate out of assimilation to the construction -etwegen as in meinetwegen, deinetwegen, etc. Shortened from von unseretwegen, which can be traced through two developmental routes. One route is from von unsernt / unsrent / unserent wegen, from von unseren wegen, from Middle High German von unsern wegen, in which wegen was the dative plural of modern-day Weg and unsern was the possessive pronoun in the dative plural.

Another route can be traced from von unsertwegen / von unsert wegen, from Middle High German von unsert wegen, from von unser wegen, in which unser was the genitive pronoun. See more at wegen.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʊnzəʁətˌveːɡən/, /ˌʊnzəʁətˈveːɡən/

• Audio:

  (file)

Adverb

unseretwegen

1. because of us, for our sake

   Synonym: (colloquial) wegen uns

   Das ist alles unseretwegen passiert.

   All of this happened because of us.

2. as far as we are concerned (we don't mind if); for all we care

   Unseretwegen kannst du mitkommen.

   As far as we are concerned, you can come with us.

Further reading

• “unsertwegen” in Duden online
• “unseretwegen” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
• Wolfgang Pfeifer, editor (1993), “wegen”, in Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen (in German), 2nd edition, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN
• “unseretwegen” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
• unsertwegen, unseretwegen at the Google Books Ngram Viewer.
• “unsertwegen” in Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm, 16 vols., Leipzig 1854–1961.