Etymologically
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Feld

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Pronunciation

Forms

Feld n (genitive Feldes or Felds, plural Felder, diminutive Feldchen n)[1] The Old and Middle High German plural had no ending (diu velt); the ending -er prevailed by the 16th century, and the old dative plural felden is occasionally found until then.[2] Luther still has the plural Felde, and the old dative plural survives in place names such as Rheinfelden.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German velt, inherited from Old High German feld, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *felþu (“field”).[4][1][5] The same word is Old Saxon feld, Old English feld and Old Frisian feld, continued in Dutch veld and English field.[4][6] With another ablaut grade the same base gives Old Norse fold (“earth, land, pasture”), Old English folde (“earth, ground”) and folda (“earth”), and the river name Fulda.[4][3] No Gothic form is recorded, but the word was borrowed very early into Finnish as pelto (“field”).[5]

Kluge, Pfeifer and the EWA derive it, with a dental suffix, from the root Proto-Indo-European *pelə-, *plā- (“to spread out, flat”), so that the first meaning was “what is spread out, a plain”;[4][6] Kluge adds that the root was perhaps originally Proto-Indo-European *pel- (“to strike”), “to beat flat”.[4] Related words outside Germanic include Old Church Slavonic поле (polje, “field”) (Russian поле (póle)), Latin plānus (“flat”) and palam (“openly”).[6][4][7] Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *pélth₂-o-, and Orel compares Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “flat, broad”).[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German feld is recorded from the 8th century, in glosses, the Lex Salica fragment, Otfrid, Notker and Williram, meaning “field, plain, open land, surface”, and occasionally already “battlefield”.[5][10][6] The Lex Salica fragment of the early 9th century fines anyone who steals a pig in felðde, “in the field”, where a herdsman is present.[2]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German velt also meant a camp, a tournament ground and above all a battlefield, because battles were fought in open country; hence zu Felde ziehen, im Felde stehen and the 16th-century compounds Feldhauptmann, Feldmarschall and Feldzug.[6][7][3] The army surgeon was the Feldscherer (16th century), shortened to Feldscher in the 17th; the Feldstecher “field glasses” dates from the 19th century.[6]

From the open field came the sense “field of crops”, then “a marked-off section of a surface” (of a chessboard, a coat of arms), the sports field, and “field of activity, subject” (18th century), which starts from the farmer's field of work.[7][3] The physical Kraftfeld “field of force” dates from the end of the 19th century,[7] and DWB2 attributes two of the modern senses to the influence of English field.[2] Fontane's Effi Briest ends with das ist ein zu weites Feld, which became a household phrase for a subject too large to discuss.[3][11]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German feld is recorded.[4][6]
  • Early 9th century – felðde in the Lex Salica fragment.[2]
  • 1060/65 – ze velde in the Vienna Genesis.[2]
  • 16th century – Military compounds such as Feldhauptmann, Feldmarschall and Feldzug; the plural in -er prevails.[6][2]
  • 17th century – Feldscher “army surgeon”, shortened from Feldscherer.[6]
  • 18th century – Sense “field of activity, subject”.[7]
  • 1788 – Knigge writes of a wide field (ein weites Feld) to be worked through.[3]
  • Late 19th century – Kraftfeld in physics.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (elevated) Open, unbuilt countryside: über freies Feld wandern.[11]
  2. A field for growing crops: Die Bäuerin pflügt das Feld.[11][1]
  3. A marked-off section of a surface: a square of a chessboard, a box of a form, the field of a coat of arms.[11][1]
  4. (sport) The playing field: einen Spieler vom Feld stellen.[11][1]
  5. (dated) The battlefield, the front: ins Feld ziehen.[11][1]
  6. A field of activity or study, a domain: das Feld der Biologie.[11][1]
  7. (physics) A region in which forces act: ein magnetisches Feld.[11]
  8. (sport) The body of competitors in a race: das Feld anführen.[11][12]
  9. (linguistics) Short for Wortfeld, a lexical field.[11]
  10. (computing) An array.[1][12]

Word family

  • Feldherr
  • Feldmarschall
  • Feldzug
  • Feldwebel
  • Feldscher
  • Feldstecher
  • Feldlager
  • Feldküche
  • Feldmaus
  • Feldhase
  • Feldlerche
  • Feldweg
  • Feldforschung
  • Spielfeld
  • Kraftfeld
  • Wortfeld
  • Flur
  • Gefilde
  • flach
  • English field

Usage notes

Many fixed phrases come from the battlefield sense: das Feld räumen “to give up one's position”, das Feld behaupten “to hold one's ground against rivals”, etwas ins Feld führen “to put something forward as an argument”, jemanden aus dem Feld schlagen “to defeat someone”.[11][3] Noch in weitem Feld stehen “to be still quite uncertain” originally referred to grain not yet harvested.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f 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. 9, 301
  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 Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 285
  5. ^ a b c Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 3, 134
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag
  8. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 99
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  12. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org