Etymologically
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Chance

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈʃãːs(ə)/, /ˈʃɔ̃ːs(ə)/, /ˈʃaŋs(ə)/[1]
  • Austria: /ˈʃɒːs(ɛ)/[1]

Forms

Chance f (genitive Chance, plural Chancen)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French chance (“luck, prospect, possibility”), borrowed at the beginning of the 19th century according to Pfeifer, Paul and the Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch.[2][3][4] Kluge and the Duden date the borrowing to the 17th century.[5][6] The French noun, Old French cheance, first meant the fall of the dice in a game, and goes back to Vulgar Latin *cadentia (“a falling”), a derivative of the present participle of Latin cadō (“to fall”).[5][2][6] The same Latin verb is the source of Kadenz, Kasus, Kadaver, Dekadenz and Okzident.[6]

Kluge points out that the word came into German as a term of horse racing, a sport shaped by English, and so assumes a borrowing through English chance with a return to the French form.[5] The Wortgeschichte digital also allows for English influence.[7] The same word is Dutch kans, Swedish chans and Norwegian sjanse.[5]

The Old French word had already been borrowed around 1200 as Middle High German schanze (“lucky throw, turn of fortune”), which survives in the archaic Schanze “chance”, in zuschanzen and in Mummenschanz.[2][3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch is from 1807, where Chance stands beside Fortüne for outward good luck, as opposed to true happiness.[4] Paul cites Petri's dictionary of foreign words (5th edition, 1828) as an early record.[3]

Semantic evolution

Since its borrowing the word has mainly meant a favourable opportunity and the prospect of success, less often a probability or plain luck.[7][4] The sense of probability appears in writing on the calculus of probability in 1835.[8] By the end of the 19th century at the latest it was used for the prospects of disadvantaged groups and their share in society, and this use led to Chancengleichheit “equality of opportunity”, a slogan of education policy in the 1970s.[7][3] Die Chance des Lebens “the chance of a lifetime” is recorded from the mid-20th century, in Brecht.[8]

The older loan Schanze in the sense “lucky throw, good fortune” was in use from the 15th to the 18th century, and survives in the phrase (sein Leben) in die Schanze schlagen “to risk (one's life)”, recorded from the mid-16th century.[2][4] The German word was passed on to Hungarian as sansz (1854) and to Czech as šance.[9]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – Old French cheance is borrowed as Middle High German schanze.[3]
  • Mid-16th century – The phrase in die Schanze schlagen “to risk” is recorded.[4]
  • 1807 – First record of Chance in German.[4]
  • 1831 – Pückler-Muskau writes of officers who may now eine Chance finden.[8]
  • 1835 – Chance is used for a probability.[8]
  • 1854 – Hungarian sansz is recorded, borrowed from German.[9]
  • 1971 – Bourdieu and Passeron's book appears in German as Die Illusion der Chancengleichheit.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A favourable opportunity, the possibility of achieving something: eine zweite Chance bekommen “to get a second chance”.[10][11]
  2. A prospect of success: ihre Chancen auf den Titel sind gering “her chances of the title are slim”.[10][1]
  3. (colloquial) With bei, a prospect of winning someone's affection: bei ihr hat er keine Chance.[10][3]
  4. The likelihood of an event.[12][8]

Word family

  • Chancengleichheit
  • Bildungschance
  • Chancenlosigkeit
  • Schanze
  • zuschanzen
  • Kadenz
  • Kasus
  • English chance

Usage notes

The word is pronounced in the French way, [ˈʃãːsə] or [ʃãːs], and its plural is Chancen.[10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d 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 Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Schulz, Hans; Basler, Otto, et al. (1913–1988), Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch, 7 vols., Strasbourg / Berlin: Trübner / De Gruyter; 2nd ed., ed. Gerhard Strauß et al. (1995–), Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; via OWID, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache
  5. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 169
  6. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 181
  7. ^ a b c Wortgeschichte digital (2020–), Zentrum für digitale Lexikographie der deutschen Sprache (ZDL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, zdl.org/wb/wortgeschichten
  8. ^ a b c d e 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, 1092
  9. ^ a b 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
  11. ^ Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  12. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org