Klasse

Forms

Klasse f (genitive Klasse, plural Klassen)^[1] It was long written Classe or Claß.^[2][3] Early records sometimes keep the Latin inflection.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin classis (“division; class of pupils; army, fleet”), borrowed in the 16th century.^[5][2][6] Kluge takes the Latin word to have meant first “a calling together”, then the crowd called up, a military division and finally the property classes into which the Roman people was divided;^[5] the Wiktionary DE entry connects it with calō (“to call together”).^[7]

The newer senses that arose in the 18th century, “a group with common features” and “a social stratum”, came under the influence of French classe,^[6][2] and Wiktionary holds that the whole word probably came by way of French.^[1] The same word is Dutch klasse, Swedish klass and English class.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Heinrich Bullinger's Haußbuoch (Zurich, 1558).^[8] From the start the word had two widely separated senses: a class of pupils at school and a category or group of things.^[8] In 1581 Naß writes of people who signed the Book of Concord deren villerley Classen seyn (“of whom there are many classes”).^[3]

Semantic evolution

In school use the word, already Latin in this sense in Quintilian, spread to the classroom and the school year.^[3][9][10] In the 18th century it became a term of scientific classification, first in Linnaeus's botany: Adelung in 1774 describes plants divided into classes, the classes into orders.^[9][2]

From the same century it was also used of social groups, partly after French and English: Guden in 1768 distinguishes kinds and classes of inhabitants, and Wieland already speaks of the working classes in 1772.^[9][3] Girtanner noted in 1791 that it was a democratic term used instead of Stände “estates”.^[3] In Marxism it became the central unit of society and a rallying word of the socialist movement, with Klassenkampf (Marx and Engels, 1847), Klassenbewusstsein (Engels, 1865) and Klassengesellschaft (Engels, 1878).^[8][2]

It also came to mean a rank or quality, in taxes, lotteries and orders, and in railway travel after 1847.^[9][2] From phrases like erster Klasse came colloquial Klasse “excellent”, recorded in 1920 in Courths-Mahler, and the indeclinable adjective klasse, recorded in 1925.^[9][5] German passed the word on to Czech klasa, also in Slovak.^[11]

Timeline

• 1558 – First record, in Heinrich Bullinger's Haußbuoch.^[8]
• 1581 – Classen in the sense “groups, kinds”.^[3]
• 1768 – Used of classes of inhabitants.^[9][3]
• 1772 – Wieland speaks of the working classes.^[9]
• 1774 – Adelung records the botanical sense.^[9]
• 1847 – Klassenkampf (Marx and Engels); railway seats are divided into three classes.^[2][9]
• 1920 – Klasse meaning “excellent”, in Courths-Mahler.^[9]
• 1925 – The indeclinable adjective klasse.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A class at school: a group of pupils taught together.^[12][1]
2. A school year, grade: Mein Neffe geht in die dritte Klasse.^[12]
3. A classroom.^[12][7]
4. (technical) A section of an Akademie.^[12][2]
5. (sociology) A social class, a group of people in the same economic and social position.^[12][1]
6. A group of things with common features; in biology, the rank between Stamm and Ordnung.^[2][7]
7. A grade of service or rank, as in erster Klasse reisen.^[2][7]
8. (colloquial) Excellence, high quality: Der Torwart hat Klasse.^[1][9]
9. (computing) A class in object-oriented programming.^[1][7]

Word family

• Klassenkampf
• Klassenzimmer
• Klassenkamerad
• Klassenlehrer
• klasse
• erstklassig

Related words

• klassisch
• klassifizieren
• klassieren
• English class

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
3. ^ 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
4. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
5. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 496
6. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 438
7. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
8. ^ a b c d Wortgeschichte digital (2020–), Zentrum für digitale Lexikographie der deutschen Sprache (ZDL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, zdl.org/wb/wortgeschichten
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. 11, 1005
11. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
12. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag