ändern

Forms

ändern (third-person singular present ändert, past tense änderte, past participle geändert, auxiliary haben)^[1] Luther's Bible spells it endern.^[2] Middle Low German had anderen and enderen.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German endern (also andern), formed from anderer.^[5][3][4][6] The same verb is Middle Low German anderen and Middle Dutch anderen.^[3][4] The Grimms' dictionary says that the verb is missing in Old and Middle High German, apart from verandern,^[2] but Lexer and the revised dictionary quote the Middle High German verb from the 13th century on.^[5][4]

The adjective goes back through ander to Proto-Germanic *anþeraz (“other”) and Proto-Indo-European *ánteros, the same word as Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌸𐌰𐍂 (anþar) and Old English ōþer.^[7][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the revised Grimm dictionary is a document of 1267, swenne es sich endert “whenever it changes”.^[4] In Middle High German the verb meant “to change, alter”, also reflexive, and sich endern could mean “to move house” (1339) or “to marry again”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Luther's Bible has reiniget euch und endert ewre kleider (Genesis 35:2), where the verb means “to change (clothes)”.^[2] Writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, such as Opitz, Haller and Voss, also used it intransitively for “to change, vary”;^[2] Adelung rejected this use as not High German,^[8] but it survives in Switzerland.^[4][6] A common phrase is daran ist nichts zu ändern, “there is nothing to be done about it”.^[6][2]

Timeline

• 1267 – First record, in a document.^[4]
• 1282 – wan er sin leben wolde endern “for he wanted to change his life”.^[4]
• 1339 – sich endern “to move house”.^[5]
• 16th century – Luther's Bible uses endern.^[2]
• 1787 – Pestalozzi uses the verb intransitively.^[4]
• 1793 – Adelung rejects the intransitive use.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To alter, to modify in details: eine Hose kürzer machen und ändern lassen.^[6][1]
2. To change, replace with something else: Sie änderte ihre Pläne.^[6][1]
3. (reflexive) To become different: Das Klima hat sich stark geändert.^[6][1]
4. (Switzerland) Without sich: to change: Die Preise ändern ständig.^[6]

Word family

• abändern
• Änderung
• umändern
• verändern
• Veränderung

Related words

• anders
• anderer

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 311
3. ^ a b c d Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Neubearbeitung (1965–2018), ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 9 vols. (A–F), Leipzig / Stuttgart: Hirzel, p. 2, 806
5. ^ a b c d Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 552
6. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
7. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 43
8. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf