köken: From Middle High German künnen, kunnen, from Old High German kunnan, from Proto-West Germanic *kunnan, from Proto-Germanic *kunnaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵneh₃- (“to know”). The umlauted ö in the infinitive and plural present—as well as the umlaut in the other modal verbs mögen (“to like”), müssen (“to have to”), and dürfen (“to be allowed to”)—is unexpected from an historical point of view.…
köken: From Vulgar Latin quī sapit (“who knows”). Cognate with Spanish and Galician quizá, Portuguese quiçá. By surface analysis, univerbation of chi + sa, literally “who knows”.
maybe; perhaps; probably (expresses a possibility or assumption)
köken: From Middle Persian šʾ(d)yt’ (šāyēd, “one can, it is possible”), grammaticalized form of the third person singular indicative form of the verb šʾd-stn’ (šāyistan, “to be able, to be worthy”) (whence Persian شایستن (šāyistan)), further from Proto-Iranian *xšáyati, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *kšáyati (“he rules, he has power over”) (whence Sanskrit क्षयति (kṣáyati)), probably from Proto-Indo-European…
köken: Borrowed from Classical Persian بَلْکِه (balki). Cognate with Kyrgyz балки (balki), Bashkir бәлки (bəlki), Uzbek balki, Azerbaijani bəlkə, Turkish belki, etc.
köken: From Middle Dutch misscien, meschien, maschien, short for (het) mach schien (“(it) may happen”), equivalent to mag + geschieden. Compare with Danish måske.
köken: This is a compound phrase of the interrogative particle か (ka, used to form questions, also used as a coordinating particle similar to English whether), the inclusive particle も (mo, “even, also”) plus the negative potential non-past form 知(し)れない (shirenai, literally “can not know”) of the verb 知(し)る (shiru, “to know something”), all together literally meaning “can not even know whether…