Amt

Forms

Amt n (genitive Amtes or Amts, plural Ämter)^[1] Middle High German shortened the word: the /h/ was lost before /t/ in the unstressed syllable, giving ambet, and the loss of the vowel then gave ambt, ampt and amt.^[2] A second line of forms went through /mm/, as in ammet.^[2] The full form ambacht lasted in Alsace, on the Upper Rhine and in West Central German into Early New High German.^[2] The spellings Ambt and Ampt gave way to Amt in the 18th century.^[2] The plural was at first ambet or ampte; the plural in -er, usually with umlaut (Ämter), arose in Middle High German.^[2] Luther still used ampt as a plural.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German ambahte, inherited from Old High German ambahti (“service, office”), inherited from Proto-Germanic *ambahtiją (“service”).^[4][5][1] The same word is Old Saxon ambaht, Old English ambiht, Old Norse embætti and Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌱𐌰𐌷𐍄𐌹 (andbahti), whose first syllable was remade after the prefix 𐌰𐌽𐌳- (and-);^[4][2] it continues in Dutch ambt, Swedish ämbete and Icelandic embætti.^[4]

The neuter noun was formed from a masculine Proto-Germanic *ambahtaz (“servant, follower”), found in Old High German ambaht (“servant, official”) and Gothic 𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌱𐌰𐌷𐍄𐍃 (andbahts, “servant”), with the feminine ambátt (“bondwoman”).^[5][6][7] That masculine is an early loan from Celtic, from the word that Caesar and other Latin writers record as Gaulish ambactus (“vassal, servant”), from Proto-Celtic *ambaxtos (“servant”).^[4][5][7][1] Its parts correspond to Latin ambi- (“around”) and āctus, the past participle of agō (“to drive, do”);^[4][5][2] the same Celtic word may survive in Welsh amaeth (“farmer”).^[4][7] Pfeifer and Duden read the servant as “one sent around”,^[5][8] while Kluge and the revised Grimm dictionary take him to be “one who stays around his lord”, a follower.^[4][2]

Unlike Proto-Germanic *rīks (“ruler”), also taken from Celtic, the word entered Germanic after the Germanic sound shifts.^[7][1] Kluge counts it with Reich among the most important early Celtic loans.^[4] From Germanic, by way of Romance, came Italian ambasciata and French ambassade (“embassy”), the family of Ambassadeur.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The neuter ambaht is first recorded in glosses of about 765, and then in the Old High German Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, meaning “task, service, office, dignity”.^[9][10] The masculine ambaht “servant, official” appears in glosses of the third quarter of the 8th century and in the Tatian.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German ambet meant service, office, profession, divine service and mass, knighthood (schildes ambet) and the district under an Amtmann.^[11][12] Paul describes the original sense as any service that a lord gave a subordinate to perform; as the private relations of the Middle Ages gave way to the state, the word was restricted to an official position in the state, a community, the church or a school.^[13] Earlier it could also mean a craft or trade, as in Gotthelf.^[13]

By metonymy it came to name the district under an official, the authority itself and finally its building, as in Standesamt and Zollamt;^[13] in the district sense Danish took it from Middle Low German.^[13] The telephone exchange was once called das Amt, hence das Fräulein vom Amt, the operator.^[13][14] The old masculine “servant” survived only in Amtmann, which took its place,^[13] and in Swiss Ammann, a shortening of Middle High German ambetman.^[5] German Amt was borrowed into Czech and Slovak as amt.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 765 – Old High German ambaht “service, office” appears in glosses.^[9]
• 10th century – Shortened spellings such as ampht appear in glosses.^[2]
• 12th century – The form ambet is written in a gloss.^[2]
• 1583 – Last traces of the masculine “servant” in Early New High German.^[2]
• 18th century – The spellings ambt and ampt are replaced by amt.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. An official post or position in the state, a municipality or the church, with set duties: Sie kandidiert für das Amt der Oberbürgermeisterin.^[14][1]
2. A task or duty that someone has taken on: Er übernahm das Amt, die Gäste vom Bahnhof abzuholen.^[14]
3. A public authority, agency or department: das Amt für Umweltschutz;^[14][1] das Auswärtige Amt, the German Foreign Office.^[14][1]
4. The building or rooms in which such an authority is housed.^[14]
5. (dated) The telephone exchange; an outside line.^[14]
6. In some German states, an association of municipalities; historically, and still in Switzerland, an administrative district.^[14][1]
7. (Catholic Church) A sung mass, also in Hochamt.^[14][1][13]

Word family

• amtlich
• amtieren
• Amtmann
• Ammann
• Beamter
• Hochamt
• Standesamt

Related words

• Reich
• Ambassadeur
• Old High German ambaht

Usage notes

In Amt und Würden, often ironic, describes someone in a secure, established position, and von Amts wegen means “by order of the authorities” or “in an official capacity”.^[14] Seines Amtes walten (elevated) is to do what one's task requires.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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, 662
3. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 280
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 41
5. ^ a b c d e f Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
6. ^ a b Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 1, 195
7. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
9. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 34
11. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 48
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
15. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de