Herbst

Forms

Herbst m (genitive Herbstes or Herbsts, plural Herbste)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German herbest, inherited from Old High German herbist, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *harbist, inherited from Proto-Germanic *harbistaz (“harvest; autumn”), which probably first meant “harvest”.^[2][1][3] The same word is Old Saxon herƀist, Old Frisian herfst and Old English hærfest, the source of English harvest; Old Norse haust and Swedish höst go back to a variant with another suffix vowel according to Pfeifer and the EWA.^[2][4][3] Kroonen instead explains the Norse form as a distortion after the middle vowel was lost, and derives the noun from a verb Proto-Germanic *harbijaną (“to pluck”).^[5][1]

Kluge connects it with Proto-Indo-European *kerp- (“to harvest, pluck”) in Latin carpō (“to pluck”), Ancient Greek καρπίζομαι (karpízomai, “to reap”) beside καρπός (karpós, “fruit”), and Lithuanian kir̃pti (“to cut”), and in words for “sickle”: Old Irish corrán, Russian черп (čerp) and κρώπιον (krṓpion).^[2] Kroonen adds Hittite karpiyezi (“to lift, pluck”).^[5] Pfeifer also cites Sanskrit कृपाण (kṛpāṇa, “sword”) and Old Church Slavonic чрьпати (črĭpati, “to scoop”), and takes the root as an extension of Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”), as in scheren.^[4][6]

Pfeifer and Duden explain the ending as the suffix of belonging also in Dienst and Ernst, so that the word meant “time of fruits” or “time of plucking”; alternatively it may be a superlative used as a noun, *karpistos- “the time best for plucking”.^[4][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German herbist is first recorded in glosses of the third quarter of the 8th century, and in Notker, meaning “autumn, harvest time”.^[7][3] A vocabulary lists it among the four seasons, lenzin sumar herpist uuintar for Latin ver aestas autumnus hiemis.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Paul takes the gathering of the crops as the first sense; in wine regions the word still means the grape harvest, measured as Vollherbst or Dreiviertelherbst.^[9] It then named the season of that work, roughly September and October, sometimes November, and finally the astronomical season between Sommer and Winter.^[9] In popular reckoning these months themselves were called der erst herbst, der ander herbst and so on.^[10] In Early New High German the autumn was also the date on which dues and interest fell due and courts sat.^[11]

Figuratively, der Herbst des Lebens is old age, as in Lessing.^[9] Derivatives include herbsten “to gather the grapes” (Middle High German herbesten), herbstlich (16th century) and Herbstling, which in the 17th century meant an autumn apple or an animal born in autumn, and in the 18th century came to mean a mushroom.^[6][4][12]

Timeline

• 3rd quarter of the 8th century – Old High German herbist appears in glosses.^[7]
• 1270 – Middle High German herbest appears in documents.^[13]
• 1281 – A Bavarian document is dated in dem herpst.^[14]
• 1495 – herbst is recorded in the sense “harvest, vintage”.^[14]
• 16th century – First record of herbstlich.^[4][6]
• 18th century – Herbstling comes to mean a mushroom.^[6]
• 1977 – The terrorist crisis gives rise to the phrase der Deutsche Herbst.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. autumn, fall: the season between summer and winter, the time of harvest and of falling leaves: Im Herbst fahren wir an den Bodensee.^[15][1]
2. (regional) The grape harvest or the fruit harvest: Die Winzer sind mitten im Herbst.^[15][16]

Word family

• herbstlich
• herbsten
• Herbstzeitlose
• Herbstmonat
• Herbstling

Related words

• scheren
• English harvest

Usage notes

Ein heißer Herbst is an autumn of political conflict after a quiet summer, and der Deutsche Herbst refers to the autumn of 1977.^[15] Der Herbst des Lebens is a poetic phrase for old age.^[15][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 411
3. ^ 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. 4, 964
4. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 367
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (1952–), founded by Elisabeth Karg-Gasterstädt and Theodor Frings, Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag / De Gruyter; online awb.saw-leipzig.de, p. 4, 966
9. ^ a b c d Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
10. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 1066
11. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
12. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
13. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
14. ^ a b Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 1253
15. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
16. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org