An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/kurz
kurz, adj., ‘short,’ from the equiv. MidHG. and OHG. kurz; a very curious loanword from Lat. curtus. What may have led to its adoption is even more obscure than in the case of sicher (from Lat. securus). The assumption of its being borrowed is supported only by the form kurt (without the change of t to z), which appears also in strictly UpG. records; comp. OHG. porta, pforta, and pforza, from Lat. porta. The form curt is OSax. and OFris.; comp. also Du. kort and Ic. kortr. The Lat. loan-word passed by degrees into all the Teut. dialects except E., which preserved an OTeut. word for ‘short’ with which the Lat. word, from its close resemblance in sound, has been confused — AS. sceort, E. short (comp. OHG. skurz, ‘short’); these cannot, on account of their want of permutation, be primit. allied to Lat. curtus. For the cognates of E. short see Schürze.