Etymologically
Log in

Gruppe

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 17:01. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɡʁʊpə/[1]

Forms

Gruppe f (genitive Gruppe, plural Gruppen, diminutive Grüppchen n or Grüpplein n)[1] Until the second half of the 18th century the word was often spelled groupe or grouppe, and a masculine Grupp was used until the middle of that century.[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French groupe, first a term of the visual arts, which comes from Italian gruppo (“cluster, group”), older also groppo (“knot, lump”).[4][5][3] German made the word feminine, after Truppe and the declension of nouns ending in ⟨-e⟩.[3][2] The same French word gave Dutch groep, English group and Swedish grupp.[4]

The further origin is unclear.[4][6][7] Pfeifer and the Fremdwörterbuch mention a derivation from Proto-Germanic *kruppaz (“lump, body”), the source of Kropf, which would have reached Italy through Gothic;[5][3][1] Wiktionary gives the same chain through Vulgar Latin *cruppus.[5][3][1] The Fremdwörterbuch also cites a Gallo-Romance verb meaning “to tie together”, formed with Frankish *rēp (“rope”).[3]

The sources date the borrowing differently: Kluge to the 18th century, Pfeifer to the beginning of that century, the Duden to the late 16th century.[4][5][8] The Fremdwörterbuch has an isolated record from 1573 and continuous use from the early 17th century,[3] and the ZDL's word history finds it first as a term of music in 1619, borrowed again from French and Italian as a term of art later in the 17th century.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, from 1573, describes a horse that goes von grupo zu grupo, keeping its legs close together.[3] Michael Praetorius used the word as a term of music in 1619.[9] In 1708 Marperger explains groupe as a painters' term for several bodies placed close together, and calls the Laocoön a groupe of three figures.[2]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century the word was used mainly in painting and sculpture, for figures arranged so that they form a whole.[10][11] Adelung remarks that German had earlier used Klump for this, which seemed too low, so the foreign word was taken instead.[11] Campe in 1801 records the wider sense “a number of things of one kind together”, such as people, trees or mountains.[10] In the 19th and 20th centuries it became a word for a category and for people with common interests, as in soziale Gruppe, and a technical term in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and the social sciences.[10][5][9] The sense “squad”, the small unit of the army, police or fire brigade, is a narrowing, and since the 1950s and 1960s, after English, the word also means a band.[9]

The verb gruppieren appears in the 18th century, first in the arts;[5][10] Lessing in his Laokoon (1766) still uses it intransitively.[5][10] German passed the word on to Hungarian as grupp (1803) and to Czech and Slovak as grupa.[12]

Timeline

  • 1573 – An isolated first record, in horsemanship.[3]
  • 1619 – Praetorius uses the word in music.[9]
  • 1708 – Marperger defines groupe as a term of painting.[2][10]
  • 1766 – Lessing uses gruppieren.[10]
  • 1801 – Campe records the wider sense.[10]
  • 1803 – Hungarian grupp is recorded.[12]
  • Second half of the 19th century – The sense “circle of people with common interests” appears.[5]
  • 1950s–1960s – The sense “band” appears after English.[9]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A small number of people or things together: eine Gruppe Radfahrer.[13][1]
  2. A class or category of things with common features.[13][14]
  3. A circle of people joined by common interests or aims: eine Gruppe von Umweltschützern.[13]
  4. (sports) A group of teams or players in a tournament.[13]
  5. (military) A squad, the smallest unit.[13][14]
  6. (geology) A group of systems of strata.[13]
  7. (mathematics) A group, a set with an associative operation, an identity and inverses.[14]
  8. (chemistry) A column of the periodic table.[14]
  9. (music) A band.[9]

Word family

  • gruppieren
  • Gruppierung
  • Grüppchen

Usage notes

Low German has a different Gruppe or Grüppe “ditch, drain behind the cattle in a stable”, which the Grimms' dictionary records from glossaries of the early 16th century.[15] Adelung already separated it from the art term and connected it with graben.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 9, 969
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 378
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  6. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  7. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  8. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 343
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Wortgeschichte digital (2020–), Zentrum für digitale Lexikographie der deutschen Sprache (ZDL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, zdl.org/wb/wortgeschichten
  10. ^ 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
  11. ^ a b c Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  12. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  13. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  14. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
  15. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 9, 976