Medium

Forms

Medium n (genitive Mediums, plural Medien)^[1] In some senses the plural is also Media.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin medium (“the middle; a means”), the neuter of the adjective medius (“in the middle, middle”) used as a noun, borrowed in the 17th century.^[4][5][6][7] The Latin adjective is cognate with Mitte.^[4][5] The sense “means of mass communication” arose in the middle of the 20th century, probably under the influence of the English plural media.^[6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word came in during the 17th century as a scientific term, “carrier of a physical process”, and as a grammatical term for the middle voice; the Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch's first record is Bellin's grammar of 1657.^[7][5] A translation of Kircher's Musurgia of 1662 explains that sound cannot be carried durch das tremulirende medium (“through the trembling medium”) as sight is through misty air.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century it came into general figurative use as “means, mediating element”;^[5] Wieland rendered it with Mittel, and Herder spoke of ein Mittleres (Medium) that prepares an object for the senses.^[7][8] Grammarians also used Media for the voiced stops b, d, g (Bödiker, 1698).^[7][5]

From about 1850, following the usage of American spiritualism, a Medium was a person said to communicate with spirits, and later also a subject of hypnotic or psychological experiments.^[5][7][6] In the second half of the 20th century the plural Medien came to mean the press, radio and television, with compounds such as Massenmedien and Printmedien;^[5][8] Multimedia, with the Latin plural, was the German Word of the Year in 1995.^[5][8]

Timeline

• 1657 – First record, as a grammatical term.^[7]
• 1662 – Used in physics for the medium that carries sound.^[7]
• 1698 – Bödiker uses Media for voiced stops.^[7]
• 18th century – General sense “means, mediating element”.^[5]
• c. 1850 – The spiritualist sense arises; the Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch's first German record is from 1871.^[7][8]
• Second half of the 20th century – Medien “the mass media”.^[5][6]
• 1995 – Multimedia is chosen as Word of the Year.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (formal) A mediating element, a means of expression: Musik als Medium der Verständigung.^[2][9]
2. (usually plural) The media: press, radio, television and the internet: Die Medien berichteten ausführlich über den Unfall.^[2][1]
3. A means of conveying information or a storage medium, such as a book or disc: Die Kassette ist ein veraltetes Medium.^[2][9]
4. (physics, chemistry) A substance through which something passes or in which a process takes place: Schall braucht ein Medium, um sich auszubreiten.^[2][1]
5. (parapsychology) A medium, a person said to communicate with the spirit world.^[2][1]
6. (medicine, psychology) A subject of experiments, especially in hypnosis.^[2]
7. (linguistics) The middle voice.^[2][1]

Word family

• Massenmedien
• Printmedien
• Multimedia

Related words

• Mitte
• mittel
• medial
• Milieu
• Intermezzo
• Latin medius
• English medium

Usage notes

The indeclinable adjective medium “medium-rare” (of meat) and “medium” (as a clothing size) is a separate, later borrowing from English.^[2][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
3. ^ a b Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
4. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 611
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 553
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org