Auftritt

Forms

Auftritt m (genitive Auftrittes or Auftritts, plural Auftritte)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German ūftrit (“height, length”), a noun formed from auftreten (Middle High German ūftreten (“to rise, step up”)), that is auf and treten.^[1][2][3] The Grimms compare Danish optrin, and Wiktionary Luxembourgish Optrëtt and Norwegian Bokmål opptrinn.^[4][1]

The verb is treten, Old High German tretan (9th century), from Proto-West Germanic *tredan (“to tread”), also found in Old English tredan, whence English tread, and in Old Frisian treda; beside it stands Proto-Germanic *trudaną in Gothic 𐍄𐍂𐌿𐌳𐌰𐌽 (trudan) and Old Norse troða.^[5][2] Kluge finds no exact comparison outside Germanic and suspects an imitative origin, as in trampeln and traben.^[5] Pfeifer cautiously starts from a participle Proto-Indo-European *druto- of *dreu-, an extension of *der- (“to run, tread, trip”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, about 1300 in the Passional, has the Middle High German noun in the sense “length, height”: Saint Christopher's body measured twelve ells an uftrit.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century the word meant stepping up or out, as when the frogs in Rollenhagen's Froschmeuseler (1595) aus dem wasser den aufftritt nahmen (“climbed out of the water”), and also the step one treads on, such as a mounting block in front of a house.^[3][4]

From the entrance of actors it became the name of a section of a play, from one entrance or exit to the next: Gryphius had called scenes Eingänge, and in the 18th century, through Christian Weise and Gottsched, Auftritt became the German word for Scene.^[4][2][7] Adelung notes that Georg Greflinger had tried Auskunft in his translation of the Cid (printed 1679), without followers.^[7] Like French scène, it then came to mean any striking incident, which led to the sense “heated quarrel”, a “scene”.^[4][8] Since the 18th century it has also meant a public appearance in general: Schiller wrote of Moses' late political Auftritt (1790).^[3][7]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – Middle High German ūftrit “length, height” in the Passional.^[3]
• 1595 – Rollenhagen uses aufftritt for climbing out of the water.^[3]
• 1679 – Greflinger proposes Auskunft for “scene”, without success.^[7]
• 18th century – Auftritt becomes the word for a scene of a play.^[2][4]
• 1790 – Schiller speaks of a political Auftritt, a public appearance.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (theatre) An actor's entrance on stage; also any public appearance or performance, such as a musician's gig or a politician's speech: Vor ihrem ersten Auftritt war sie nervös.^[8][1][6]
2. (theatre) A scene, a part of an act.^[8][1][6]
3. A heated quarrel, a row: Er wollte keinen Auftritt vor den Gästen.^[8]
4. The way someone presents themselves in public, bearing.^[6][1]
5. A step or something similar to tread on.^[6][1]

Related words

• auftreten
• treten
• Tritt
• Antritt
• Austritt
• Übertritt

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. 3, 816
4. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 765
5. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 929
6. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
7. ^ a b c d Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
8. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag