From Middle High German *ungefære*, meaning "by chance, roughly", composed of *un-* (negation) + *gefähr* (danger, chance), itself from *Gefahr* (danger, hazard). The original sense was "without precision / not exactly aimed at" — implying something arrived at by chance rather than careful measurement. Over time it shifted from "roughly, by chance" to the modern "approximately".

German speakers use *ungefähr* extremely frequently in everyday speech wherever English speakers might say "around", "roughly", or "about" with numbers and quantities. A common spoken shorthand you may hear, especially in southern Germany and Austria, is *zirka* (from Italian *circa*), which is a near-synonym often seen in written contexts too (abbreviated *ca.*).