Dienstag

Forms

Dienstag m (genitive Dienstages or Dienstags, plural Dienstage)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German dienstac, borrowed from Middle Low German dingesdach, a Low German and Lower Rhenish name that spread into High German.^[2][3][4] The same Lower Rhenish word is Middle Dutch dinxendach and Dutch dinsdag.^[2][3][5]

The names of the weekdays were modelled on the Latin names of the planets and their gods, with native gods put in their place; the Latin model of this day was Mārtis diēs (“day of Mars”), whence French mardi and Italian martedì.^[2][3][6] The first part of the Low German name is usually traced to Latin Thingsus, a byname of Mars on an altar inscription set up by Germanic soldiers in the 3rd century, read as “protector of the thing” (the assembly).^[2][3][6][4] Kluge notes that nothing else is known of this god, and that the name might instead mean “day on which the thing is held”.^[2] Pfeifer considers giving up the link with Thingsus and deriving the Lower Rhenish forms from the older Proto-Germanic *tīwas-dagaz, with /t/ replaced by /d/ to remove the heathen god's name and an /n/ added after the names of other weekdays.^[3]

That older name contains Proto-Germanic *tīwaz, the god equated with Mars: Old Norse Týr, Old English Tīw, Old High German Ziu.^[2][3] It is continued in Old Norse týsdagr, Old English Tīwesdæg, Old Frisian tīesdei and ziostag, Alemannic Ziestag, and in English Tuesday and Swedish tisdag.^[2][3][5] The god's name originally meant “divine” and corresponds to Latin dīvus; it is closely related to the name of the Indo-European sky god, Ancient Greek Ζεύς (Zeús) and Iuppiter.^[2] Bavarian Ergetag has another source again: a loan translation of Ancient Greek Ἄρεως ἡμέρα (Áreōs hēméra, “day of Ares”), probably brought by the Gothic mission.^[2][7][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is found from the 13th century in Dutch, Low German and western Central German: Low German charters of that century have dinsdag, dinsedag, dinstag and dingstag.^[5][8] Middle High German dienstac is attested from the 13th century, among others in the Prosa-Lancelot (1240–1250).^[9]

Semantic evolution

From the Lower Rhine the word reached East Central German in the 14th century and then, slowly, the south, where it pushed out Alemannic Ziestag and Bavarian Ertag; these survive in the dialects.^[3][5][6] Only from the second half of the 17th century is Dienstag the general form of the written language.^[5][3] In the 15th and 16th centuries the Upper Rhine had a mixed form zinstag.^[8][7] The bishopric of Augsburg also used Aftermontag “after-Monday”.^[7]

The long vowel ie appears from about the 14th century and won through in the 17th, helped by a popular association with Dienst “service”.^[5][7] Forms with a velar, such as dingstag, lived on in Low German, Rhenish and East Central German and in the modern dialects.^[5]

Timeline

• 3rd century – An altar inscription names Mars Thingsus.^[6][7]
• 12th century – Old High German ziestag is recorded.^[3][5]
• 13th century – Low German charters have dinsdag, dingstag.^[8][5]
• 14th century – The word spreads to East Central German, and spellings with ie appear.^[5]
• Second half of the 17th century – Dienstag becomes the general form of the written language.^[5][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. Tuesday, the second day of the week, between Montag and Mittwoch: Am Dienstag habe ich frei.^[4][1]

Word family

• dienstags

Related words

• Ziestag
• Ergetag
• Ding
• English Tuesday

Usage notes

Bavarian and Austrian dialects still have Ertag or Erchtag, and Alemannic dialects Zistig.^[5][3]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 199
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
5. ^ 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. 6, 991
6. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 203
7. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
8. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 1120
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling