Etymologically
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Foto

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Pronunciation

Forms

Foto n (genitive Fotos, plural Fotos)[1] In Switzerland it is also feminine, die Foto.[2][3] The spelling Photo was the usual one until the middle of the 20th century.[4][5]

Etymology

It is a shortening of Fotografie, which is borrowed from English photography, a learned coinage of the astronomer J. F. W. Herschel in 1839 from Ancient Greek φῶς (phôs, “light”) (genitive φωτός (phōtós)) and γράφω (gráphō, “to write, draw”).[5][6][7] The literal sense is therefore “writing with light”.[6][7] Kluge thinks Herschel's word may blend the earlier term for heliography with Talbot's photogenic drawing.[6]

The masculine noun meaning “camera” is a separate shortening, of Fotoapparat.[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Photographie was first used in German in 1839, when the native Lichtbild was already current.[6][5] The short form Photo appears in the middle of the 19th century: DFWB's first record (1859) mentions das Photo der Großmutter “grandmother's photo”, and in 1862 Bismarck wrote to his wife of some photos taken where he was.[5][4]

Semantic evolution

The short word remained rare until the early 20th century.[4] The spelling with F became the usual one from the 1930s.[5] Foto forms many compounds, such as Passfoto, Gruppenfoto and Erinnerungsfoto, and is the first part of others, such as Fotoalbum and Fotomodell.[5][3]

Timeline

  • 1839 – Photographie is first used in German.[6][5]
  • 1859 – First record of the short form Photo.[5]
  • 1862 – Bismarck writes of photo in a letter.[4]
  • 1930s – The spelling Foto becomes the usual one.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A photograph, a picture taken with a camera: ein unscharfes Foto vom Urlaub.[2][1]
  2. (masculine, colloquial, regional) A camera, short for Fotoapparat.[8][1]

Word family

  • Passfoto
  • Fotoalbum
  • Fotografie
  • Fotograf
  • fotografieren

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  3. ^ a b Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  4. ^ a b c d 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, 853
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 312
  7. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  8. ^ a b Duden. Deutsches Universalwörterbuch (2007), 6th ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag