Etymologically
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Klub

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Pronunciation

Forms

Klub m (genitive Klubs, plural Klubs)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English club, taken over in the middle of the 18th century as one of the first English words of social life, together with the custom of such closed societies.[2][3][4] The English word properly means a cudgel: it is Middle English clubbe, probably from Old Norse klubba (“cudgel, club”), a relative of Klumpen.[3][5][6]

How a cudgel came to mean a society is disputed.[2] Duden and the GWDS explain it by an old custom of sending round a notched stick or a club as the invitation to a meeting;[5][6] Kluge mentions this beside a development from “formed into a lump” to “mass” and so to “society”.[2] Pfeifer derives the sense from the English verb, “to form into a round mass”, then “to join together”.[3]

The masculine gender, against the feminine of the 18th century, is due to French club, the word for the political clubs of the French Revolution.[3][2] The same loan is Dutch club, Swedish klubb and Icelandic klúbbur.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Karl Wilhelm Ramler's letters to Gleim of 1750, as a feminine: wir wollen unsre Clubb wieder aufrichten “we want to set up our club again”.[4][7][8] It meant a regular gathering of people with literary or learned interests.[8][4]

Semantic evolution

The word was at first confined to northern and central Germany, while the south used Kasino.[2][3][4] Its history consists of successive borrowings: the English sense “society meeting regularly” in the middle of the 18th century, the French political sense at the time of the French Revolution, and, from the middle of the 19th century, borrowed again from English, the sports club.[7][8] The Jacobin Club at first gave the word a bad name, as in Schubart's Clubb tükischer Samler (1785), but this faded, and compounds such as Leseklub, Schachklub and Montagsklub became common.[9] In Austria Klub is also the parliamentary group of a party.[6][1] Hungarian borrowed klub in 1790 in the sense of a political party.[10]

Timeline

  • 1750 – Ramler writes of die Clubb in letters to Gleim.[4][7]
  • 1760 – Lessing writes unsern Klub.[4]
  • 1785 – Schubart uses Clubb contemptuously of a gang.[9]
  • 1790 – Hungarian klub “political party”.[10]
  • Late 18th century – the political sense, after the clubs of the French Revolution.[7][3]
  • Mid-19th century – the sense “sports club”, borrowed again from English.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A club, an association of people with common interests or aims: Er ist vor zwei Jahren einem Tennisklub beigetreten.[6][1]
  2. (colloquial) A clique, a group of people: Da habt ihr euch ja einen schönen Klub zusammengesucht![6]
  3. The house or rooms where a club meets: Wir treffen uns heute Abend im Klub.[6]
  4. (Austria) The parliamentary group of a party.[6][1]

Word family

  • Klubhaus
  • Fußballklub
  • Nachtklub
  • Klubmitglied
  • Club
  • Kasino
  • Klumpen

Usage notes

The English spelling Club is also used, especially in the names of clubs.[6][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 502
  3. ^ a b c d e f 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 f 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
  5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 456
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  7. ^ a b c d e Wortgeschichte digital (2020–), Zentrum für digitale Lexikographie der deutschen Sprache (ZDL), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, zdl.org/wb/wortgeschichten
  8. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  9. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 11, 1257
  10. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de