Bezirk

Forms

Bezirk m (genitive Bezirks or Bezirkes, plural Bezirke)^[1]

Etymology

It is late inherited from Middle High German bezirc (“circuit, district”), formed from Middle High German be- + zirc (“circle, circumference”).^[2][3][1] According to Kluge, the verb bezirken (“to fix the extent of”) was formed in late Middle High German, and under its influence the simple noun was extended with the prefix.^[2][4] The simple noun goes back to Old High German kirc (8th century), an early borrowing from Latin circus (“circle”), which comes from Ancient Greek κίρκος (kírkos, “circle, ring”).^[3][5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bezirk is recorded from the 15th century.^[2][3] The first quotation in the revised Grimm dictionary is from a legal record of 1487: die in diesem hof vnd bezirck jars geben einer helberling zinss “who pay a half-penny rent a year in this court and district”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From “circle, circumference” the word narrowed to “an administrative area, the territory belonging to something”.^[2] Bezirk and the older Zirk stood side by side at first; from the 17th century Zirk gradually gave way, and in the 19th century it was given up.^[3] Hunters said in Bezirk bringen for going round a thicket to see whether the game was inside.^[7][8]

The verb bezirken “to set bounds to” still appears in Goethe: O Jugend … wirst du nie / Der Freude reines Maß bezirken? (“O youth, will you never set bounds to the pure measure of joy?”, Faust II).^[4] Compounds include Amtsbezirk, Stadtbezirk and Regierungsbezirk.^[4][7] Czech slang borrowed it as pecirk, and the Polish of Teschen as becyrk “district office”.^[9]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German kirc “circle” is borrowed from Latin.^[3]
• 15th century – Bezirk is formed beside the older Zirk.^[2][3]
• 1487 – First quotation, in a legal record.^[6]
• 17th century – Zirk begins to give way to Bezirk.^[3]
• 19th century – Zirk falls out of use.^[3]
• 1876 – Anzengruber writes of living in the sixth district of Vienna, using the word of the districts of Vienna.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bounded area, region: Der Förster kennt jeden Winkel seines Bezirks.^[10][1]
2. (less common) A sphere, domain of thought or feeling.^[10]
3. An administrative district, such as a district of Berlin or Vienna, of a Swiss canton or of the former GDR: Sie wohnt im Bezirk Mitte.^[10][1]
4. (regional, colloquial) The administrative offices of a district of the GDR.^[10]

Word family

• Amtsbezirk
• Stadtbezirk
• Regierungsbezirk

Related words

• Zirkel
• Zirkus
• zirka

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 119
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
5. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 168
6. ^ 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. 5, 168
7. ^ 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, 1801
8. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
9. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
10. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag