Bad

Forms

Bad n (genitive Bades or Bads, plural Bäder)^[1] The umlauted plural beder appears in Middle High German at the end of the 13th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German bat, inherited from Old High German bad, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *baþ, inherited from Proto-Germanic *baþą (“bath”).^[4][1][5] The same word is Old Saxon bath, Old Frisian beth, Old English bæþ (now English bath) and Old Norse bað (“steam bath”); no Gothic form is recorded.^[4][2]

Kluge, Pfeifer and Kroonen take it as a formation with a participial t-suffix to the verb bähen (“to warm, toast”), Old High German bāen, so that a bath was first “something warmed”;^[4][6][5] Pfeifer and Kroonen trace this to Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₁- (“to warm”), which Kroonen holds to be found only in Germanic.^[6][5] Kluge adds that the word can hardly be independent of the Mediterranean word for a warm bath seen in Ancient Greek βαλανεῖον (balaneîon), perhaps spread through Etruscan, and that dialect evidence shows baden first meant “to heat”.^[4] The revised Grimm dictionary finds the Mediterranean link unlikely on grounds of sound and calls the Indo-European root uncertain.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German bad is recorded in glosses from about 765, rendering Latin balneum, and then in the Benedictine Rule, Otfrid and Notker.^[8][9][7] It meant a bath, a hot bath or a bathhouse, and figuratively baptism.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Paul traces the senses from the warmed water for washing, healing or refreshment and the act of bathing to the bath-house and the bathroom, the spa town and, in the 20th century, the public bath, open-air (Freibad, Strandbad) or indoor (Hallenbad).^[10] Place names such as Baden and Wiesbaden (Old High German Badun, Wisibadun) are old datives plural, “at the baths”, translating Latin Aquae.^[6][11][2] Bad is now an official prefix in the names of spa towns.^[12]

The Bader (Middle High German badære) kept a bath-house and also let blood, cupped and cut hair; the word was marked dated in 1833.^[6][10] Das Kind mit dem Bade ausschütten “to throw the baby out with the bathwater” is recorded in Adelung and earlier in Mathesius,^[13][3] and etwas ausbaden müssen “to take the consequences” dates from the end of the 16th century, after das pad ausgieszen müszen in a late medieval chronicle.^[6][14] English took sitz bath (1849) and Strandbad (1939) from German.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 765 – Old High German bad in glosses.^[8]
• c. 1100 – Old Saxon baðeri “bath keeper”.^[6]
• Late 13th century – the plural beder.^[2]
• End of the 16th century – ausbaden “to take the consequences”.^[6]
• 1833 – Bader is recorded as dated.^[10]
• 1849 – English sitz bath.^[15]
• 1937–1941 – Hallenbad and Strandbad enter the Duden.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. Bathwater, water in a tub for washing or healing: Er ließ den Kindern ein warmes Bad ein.^[16][1]
2. The act of bathing in a tub;^[16][1] ein Bad nehmen “to take a bath”; also a treatment in mud, sand or air.^[16][1]
3. A swim in the sea, a lake or a pool;^[16] ein Bad in der Menge “a walkabout among a crowd”.^[16]
4. A bathroom.^[16][1]
5. A swimming pool or public baths.^[16][1]
6. A spa town; also the title Bad in the names of such towns.^[16][12]
7. (technology, chemistry) A solution in which objects are immersed for treatment, as in developing or electroplating.^[16][12]

Word family

• baden
• Bader
• ausbaden
• Badewanne
• Badezimmer
• Badeanzug
• Badehose
• Bademantel
• Freibad
• Hallenbad
• Strandbad
• Seebad
• Heilbad

Related words

• bähen
• English bath

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 1, 423
3. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 1069
4. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 82
5. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f g Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
7. ^ a b 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. 4, 42
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 42
10. ^ a b c d Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
11. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 122
12. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
13. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
14. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 134
15. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag