Gebäude

Forms

Gebäude n (genitive Gebäudes, plural Gebäude)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German gebūwede, inherited from Old High German gibūidi (“dwelling place, settlement”) (also gibūwida), a collective noun formed from bauen, properly “that which is built”.^[2][3][4][5] The verb is būan (“to dwell, cultivate, build”), which Köbler traces to Proto-Indo-European *bʰeu- (“to grow, become, dwell”).^[6]

The by-form Gebäu, gibūwi (“dwelling, settlement”) (11th century), gebiuwe, matches Dutch gebouw (“building”).^[3] Wiktionary compares Yiddish געבײַדע (gebayde).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German gibūidi, in a gloss preserved in a 12th-century manuscript, meant “dwelling place, settlement”;^[3][2] Kluge dates the word to the 12th century.^[3][2] A feminine gibūwida glosses Latin habitatio “dwelling” and also “household goods”.^[7] Middle High German gebūwede meant “building”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The form with ge- was at first Central German (Thuringian, Lusatian) and rare in Middle High German; 15th-century Upper German glossaries have only gebeuw, and only in the 17th century did gebeude stand beside gebeu in Stieler.^[7] In the 18th century Gebäude displaced Gebäu, which lingered into the 19th.^[3][4][7]

Today the word usually means a larger building.^[5] Luther used it both for the buildings of the Temple (Matthew 24:1) and, figuratively, for a structure put together as a whole (1 Corinthians 3:9), the source of compounds such as Lehrgebäude and Gedankengebäude.^[4] In mining it names the workings of a pit (Grubengebäude), and Adelung records that a large cask or a ship could also be called a Gebäude in the general sense of a built thing.^[8][9]

Timeline

• 11th century – the by-form gibūwi.^[3]
• 12th century – Old High German gibūidi in a manuscript.^[3][2]
• 15th century – gebude in a Central German glossary.^[7]
• 16th century – Luther uses Gebäude in his Bible.^[4]
• 17th century – Stieler gives gebeude beside gebeu.^[7]
• 18th century – Gebäude displaces Gebäu.^[3]
• 1862 – one of the last records of Gebäu.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A building, a large structure: Das neue Gebäude der Bibliothek hat sechs Stockwerke.^[9][1]
2. A structure, something put together as a whole: ein Gebäude aus Ausreden.^[9]
3. (mining) The workings of a mine.^[9][8]
4. (hunting, horse breeding) The build or conformation of a dog or horse.^[9]

Word family

• Hauptgebäude
• Nebengebäude
• Wohngebäude
• Lehrgebäude
• Gedankengebäude
• Gebäudekomplex

Related words

• bauen
• Bau
• Gebäu

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 337
3. ^ 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
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 303
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 4, 1655
8. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 2, 444
9. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag