Abend

Forms

Abend m (genitive Abends, plural Abende)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German ābent, inherited from Old High German āband, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *ābanþ, inherited from Proto-Germanic *ēbanþs (“evening”).^[2][1][3] The same word is Old Saxon āband, Old Frisian ēvend, Middle Dutch avont and Dutch avond, and, perhaps reshaped after the word for “morning”, Old English ǣfen, the source of English eve and evening.^[2][4][3] The Norse forms differ, with a short vowel and a dental: Old Norse aptann, Swedish afton, Danish aften.^[2][4][5] Gothic has no corresponding word.^[2][4]

In Old Norse the word at first meant the time from about three to nine in the afternoon, while sunset was kveld; later the Norse languages generalised that word, the other languages this one.^[2]

Its further origin is disputed.^[2][6][3] Kluge assumes a formation with the suffix of time words in /nt/ from a word for “late, later”, the one behind aber, and compares French soir from Latin sērus (“late”), and Ancient Greek ὀψία (opsía, “evening”) from ὀψέ (opsé, “late”).^[2] Pfeifer, the Duden and the Grimms' revised dictionary likewise connect it with ἐπί (epí, “on”) and Proto-Indo-European *epi (“near, after, behind”), reconstructing *ēponto- or *āptanto-: the evening would be the later part of the day.^[4][7][5][8] Kroonen compares the suffix of Hittite išpant- (“night”) and reconstructs *h₁eh₁pt-ont-, but considers the etymology unclear, since the initial laryngeal rules out the link with “after”.^[3] The long vowel of the West Germanic forms is unexplained.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German āband appears in glosses of the last quarter of the 8th century, and the compound abendstern “evening star” also in the 8th century.^[9][2] In the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and the Murbach Hymns it means the evening, also the evening of life or of the world, the evening service and the eve of a feast.^[10][9]

Semantic evolution

The sense “eve of a feast”, and even “the day before a feast”, comes from the old reckoning in which the day began with the evening before it, as in the Bible (Leviticus 23:32) and among the Germanic peoples according to Tacitus.^[2][6][11] It survives in Feierabend, Heiligabend and Sonnabend.^[7][6] From the 14th century Abend also means “west”, a semantic loan from vesper, first in a translation of Marco Polo according to the Duden; it became common through Luther in the early 16th century.^[2][11][4] The older Duden edition says the sense first appears in Luther's Bible.^[7] Hence Abendland “the West” (16th century).^[4]

In southern and western Germany Abend could also mean the afternoon, while in the north and centre it includes the hours of darkness.^[6] The greeting guten Abend is found in Middle High German, in the Kudrun.^[6] From the 18th century, after French soirée, the word also names an evening party or performance.^[6] In the Bavarian and Austrian dialects the word was not originally at home, where Nacht was used instead.^[5]

Timeline

• 8th century – The compound abendstern “evening star” is recorded.^[2]
• Late 8th century – Old High German āband appears in glosses.^[9]
• c. 1200 – The genitive ābendes becomes an adverb, the modern abends.^[4]
• 14th century – Abend is used for “west”, after Latin vesper.^[2]
• 16th century – Luther makes Abendmahl the name of the Last Supper and the sacrament.^[4]
• 1699 – Vorabend “eve” is recorded.^[6]
• 18th century – Abend comes to mean an evening party, after French soirée.^[6]
• 1996 – The spelling reform makes heute Abend the standard spelling, replacing heute abend.^[1]

Meanings

Noun

1. The evening, the time of day around dusk until the night: am späten Abend.^[12][1]
2. A social gathering or performance in the evening: ein musikalischer Abend, bunter Abend “variety evening”.^[12][13]
3. (dated) The west.^[12][1]
4. (figurative) The end of a life or an era: der Abend des Lebens.^[13][6]

Word family

• abends
• abendlich
• Abendland
• Abendmahl
• Abendrot
• Abendessen
• Feierabend
• Heiligabend
• Sonnabend
• Vorabend
• Lebensabend

Related words

• aber
• English evening

Usage notes

Es ist noch nicht aller Tage Abend “it is not yet the evening of all days” means that nothing is decided yet; it goes back, in variants, to Early New High German.^[6] Der Heilige Abend is Christmas Eve, and je später der Abend, desto schöner die Gäste is a humorous greeting for a latecomer.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 4
3. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ a b c 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. 1, 121
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
7. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
8. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 27
11. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 98
12. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
13. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org