Dutch

Meanings

Adjective

• Of or pertaining to the Netherlands, the Dutch people or the Dutch language.
• Pertaining to Germanic-speaking peoples on the European continent, chiefly the Dutch, the Germans, and the Goths; Teutonic; Germanic. Especially refers to Germans, and specific use to established German-speaking communities in parts of the USA.
• Substitute, inferior, ersatz.
• Thrifty.
• Pertaining to Afrikaner culture (Cape Dutch).

Proper Noun

• The main language of the Netherlands and Flanders (i.e., the northern half of Belgium); Netherlandic.
• German; the main language of the Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Austria, Alsace, Luxembourg).

Noun

• The people of the Netherlands, or one of certain ethnic groups descending from the people of the Netherlands.
• Afrikaner people (Cape Dutch).
• The Pennsylvania Dutch people.

Verb

• To treat cocoa beans or powder with an alkali solution to darken the color and lessen the bitterness of the flavor.

Related

Narrower meaning words

• High-Dutch, High Dutch
• Low-Dutch, Low Dutch
• Pennsylvania Dutch

Origin

• From Middle English Duch ("German, Low German, Dutch"), from Middle Low German dütsch, düdesch and Middle Dutch dutsch, duutsc, from Proto-West Germanic *þiudisk, from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz ("of one’s people"), derived from *þeudō, from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂. Deutsch, thede, tuath, and .
• Compare Middle English thedisch from Old English þēodisċ ("of one’s people"), Old Saxon thiudisk (German Low German düütsch ("German")), Old High German diutisc (modern German deutsch ("German")), modern Dutch Duits ("German") alongside elevated Diets (a secondary distinction, fully accepted only in the 19th century). See also Derrick, Teuton, Teutonic.
• The pejorative sense is said to come from the ingenuity of poor Germanic immigrants settling in the Anglosphere in the 19th and early 20th centuries.