trouwens

Dutch

Etymology

From the obsolete trouwen (“indeed, really”) +‎ -s (adverbial suffix). The adverb trouwen was the petrified dative singular of the noun trouw (“loyalty”) in its obsolete sense “word of honour”.[1]

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈtrɑu̯.əns/
  • Audio:(file)
  • Hyphenation: trou‧wens

Adverb

trouwens

  1. besides; by the way

Descendants

  • Afrikaans: trouens

References

  1. ^ van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “trouwens”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.