In the nominative and accusative neuter, the forms dieses and dies are in general interchangeable, but there is a tendency to prefer one or the other in the following situations:
In adjectival usage, dieses is generally preferred to dies. So dieses Haus ("this house") is more common than the also correct and synonymic dies Haus.
In substantival usage, dieses is used to refer to a previously used neuter noun:
Unser Unternehmen sollte das Gebäude verkaufen. Wir können dieses nicht mehr gebrauchen.
Our company should sell the building. We cannot make use of it anymore.
Dies is used to refer to a preceding context or phrase:
Unser Unternehmen sollte das Gebäude verkaufen. Dies würde uns viel Geld einbringen.
Our company should sell the building. This would earn us a lot of money.
Dies is also used to refer to something the speaker perceives with the senses (exophoric use, deixis):
Sieh dir dies mal an! – Have a look at this! (e.g. a newspaper article)
Dies sind meine Kinder. – These are my children. (regular use of the neuter singular with a copula verb)
The above habits are mainly true of formal speech and writing. Colloquially, the shorter dies is often preferred, but the pronouns das and es are even more common.
Further reading
“dies” in Duden online
“dies” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
Ilocano
Alternative forms
diez — obsolete, abecedario or Spanish spelling
diyes, dyes — common, abakada or Tagalog spelling
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanishdiez.
Pronunciation
IPA(key): /ˈdjes/, [ˈd͡ʒes]
IPA(key): /ˈdijes/, [ˈdi.jes]
Hyphenation: di‧es
Numeral
dies
ten
Synonyms:sangapulo, pullo
Latin
Etymology
Back-formed from the accusative diem (at a time when the vowel was still long), from Proto-Italic*djēm, the accusative of *djous, from Proto-Indo-European*dyḗws(“heaven, sky”). The original nominative survives as *diūs in two fossilised phrases: mē diūs fidius(an interjection) and nū diūs tertius(“day before yesterday”, literally “now (is) the third day”). The d in diēs is a puzzle with some suggesting dialect borrowing and others referring to an etymon *diyew- via Lindeman's Law. But note the possible Proto-Italic allophony between *-CjV- and *-CiV-, which may be the cause for this divergence (See WT:AITC).
Cognate with Ancient GreekΖήν(Zḗn), Old Armenianտիւ(tiw, “daytime”), Old Irishdía, Welshdydd, Polishdzień, but not Englishday, which is a false cognate. The Italic stem was also the source of Iovis, the genitive of Iuppiter and was generally interchangeable with it in earlier times, still shown by the analogical formation Diēspiter.
A solar or sidereal day of about 24 hours, especially(historical) Roman dates reckoned from one midnight to the next.
in dies ― day by day
sub diem ― at daybreak
antediem III idusIanuarias ― the third day before the January ides
Daytime: a period of light between sunrise and sunset.
primadieihora ― the first hour of the day
(often in the feminine) A set day: a date, an appointment.
Usage notes
Dates in the Roman calendar were reckoned according to the calends (kalendae), the nones (nōnae), and the ides (īdūs). The calends of every month was its first day; the nones and ides of most months were their 5th and 13th days; and the nones and ides of the four original 31-day months—Mārtius, Maius, Quīntīlis or Iūlius, and Octōber—were two days later. January 1st was thus kalendaeIānuāriae or Iānuāriī. The day preceding any of these three principal days was called its eve (prīdiē). January 12th was thus prīdiēīdūsIānuāriās or Iānuāriī (pr.Id.Ian.). All other days of the month were expressed by counting inclusively forward to the next of these three principal days and, in early Latin, this was expressed in the ablative. January 11th was thus diētertiōanteīdūsIānuāriās or Iānuāriī (IIIId.Ian.). By the time of classical Latin, however, the ante had moved to the beginning of the expression and it became an accusative absolute: antediemtertiumīdūsIānuāriās or Iānuāriī (a. d.IIIId.Ian.). In this form, the date functioned as a single indeclinable noun and could serve as the object of prepositions such as ex and in.
Unlike most fifth-declension nouns, diēs is not exclusively feminine. It was typically masculine, particularly in the plural. It appears as a feminine noun when being personified as a goddess, in some specific dates, in reference to the passing of time, and occasionally in other contexts.
Declension
Fifth-declension noun.
Antonyms
(antonym(s) of "daytime"):nox
Derived terms
Related terms
diū
diurnus
nū̆diū̆s
biduus
trīduum
quadriduum
Descendants
References
Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911) “dies”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), page 206
Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “dīes”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volumes 3: D–F, page 71
Further reading
“dies”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“dies”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
dies in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
dies in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
“dies”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
“dies”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
Sihler, Andrew L. (1995) New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN
dies in Enrico Olivetti, editor (2003-2024), Dizionario Latino, Olivetti Media Communication
Latvian
Verb
dies
third-person singular/plural future indicative of diet
Middle Dutch
Adverb
dies
therefore, because of that, for that reason
Conjunction
dies
until
because
Determiner
dies
masculine/neuter genitive singular of die
Contraction
dies
Contraction of die es.
Northern Sami
Determiner
dies
locative singular of diet
Norwegian Bokmål
Verb
dies
passive form of die
Papiamentu
Etymology
From Spanishdiez and Portuguesedez and Kabuverdianudés.
Numeral
dies
ten (10)
Romansch
Etymology
From Vulgar Latindossum, from Latindorsum. Compare Frenchdos.