Film

Forms

Film m (genitive Filmes or Films, plural Filme, diminutive Filmchen n)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English film (“thin skin, membrane; coating”), from Old English filmen (“membrane, thin skin”), a word of the Germanic family of Fell.^[2][3][4][5] The Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch traces the Old English word to a West Germanic word for “skin”, and Wahrig compares Old Frisian filmene (“skin”).^[5][6]

The English word was applied to photographic film, which, as introduced by Edison and Eastman in 1889, was a mass dried on glass and then peeled off.^[2][4] The name came into German with the thing, and later the original sense “thin layer” was borrowed as well.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in 1891, in a note on photography “with films” in a technical journal, meaning the sensitised strip on which photographs are taken.^[7][8] An 1896 text says that such films can be used as well as glass plates.^[5] Until the early 20th century the word often kept its English form and plural films; plurals in -e prevailed from the 1920s.^[7][5]

Semantic evolution

From the early 20th century the word mainly meant a motion picture, and by 1920 there were compounds such as Spielfilm, Lehrfilm and Detektivfilm;^[5][8][3] Stummfilm and Tonfilm are recorded from 1928.^[5][8][3] It also came to stand for the medium and the industry, as in Film und Fernsehen or beim Film arbeiten;^[7][8] Filmstar follows British English.^[7][8] The verbs filmen and verfilmen belong to the 20th century.^[3][4] The sense “thin layer”, as in Ölfilm, is recorded from the 1930s.^[7][2] Wie im Film describes something astonishing that really happens.^[8] Hungarian took over film in 1894.^[9]

Timeline

• 1889 – Edison and Eastman introduce photographic film.^[2]
• 1891 – First German record, in the sense “photographic film”.^[7][8]
• 1896 – Films are recommended in place of glass plates.^[5]
• 1913 – Kellermann's Der Tunnel describes a ten-minute film shown to an audience.^[7]
• 1920s – The plural Filme prevails over Films.^[7]
• 1928 – Stummfilm and Tonfilm are recorded.^[8]
• 1936 – Film is used of a thin layer formed by drying oil.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A very thin continuous layer: ein feiner Film aus Staub.^[10][1]
2. A strip of light-sensitive material for taking photographs.^[10][1]
3. A motion picture, a sequence of moving images made for the cinema or television.^[10][1]
4. The film industry: zum Film wollen (to want to become a film actor).^[10][11]

Word family

• filmen
• verfilmen
• filmisch
• Spielfilm
• Stummfilm
• Tonfilm
• Filmstar
• Ölfilm
• Filmriss

Related words

• Fell
• English film

Usage notes

Bei ihm ist der Film gerissen (colloquial) means that he has lost the thread or had a blackout, whence Filmriss.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. 294
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 268
5. ^ 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
6. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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, 484
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
9. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
10. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
11. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org