Museum

Forms

Museum n (genitive Museums, plural Museen)^[1] Until the end of the 18th century the word was often used in its Latin form and inflected as Latin, as in a comedy of 1658 that has in ihrem Musaeo “in their study”.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mūsēum (“place for learned pursuits; library, academy”), from Ancient Greek μουσεῖον (mouseîon, “seat or shrine of the Muses”), a noun formed beside the adjective μούσειος (moúseios, “of the Muses”) and based on Μοῦσα (Moûsa, “Muse”).^[3][4][5][2] Kluge dates the borrowing to the 16th century.^[3] The same Latin word lies behind Dutch museum, English museum, French musée and Swedish museum.^[3] The Greek noun belongs with Muse and Musik.^[4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, of 1586, shows the sense “study, a scholar's room”: a parish priest calls people in sein Studierstube vnd Museum “into his study and museum”.^[2] Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus (1669) still uses it so, of a pastor leading the hero into his Museum.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the sense “study” the word lived on in student language from the 16th to the middle of the 19th century.^[6] From the 17th century it also meant a collection of art or antiquities, first recorded in Moscherosch in 1642.^[2][4][5] In the 18th century Museum was a favourite title of collected works and learned journals, first Latin and then German ones.^[4][2][6] Since the 19th century it has also named the building in which such collections are shown.^[6][5]

The adjective museal “of a museum” is recorded in the Duden of 1934, and it has come to mean “dusty, out of date” as well.^[6] Hungarian múzeum is recorded from 1634.^[7]

Timeline

• 1586 – First record, in the sense “study”.^[2]
• 1642 – Moscherosch uses it for a collection.^[2]
• 1669 – Grimmelshausen still uses it for a pastor's study.^[2]
• 18th century – Frequent as the title of collected works and journals.^[4][2]
• 19th century – Used of the building that houses a collection; the student sense “study” fades out by mid-century.^[6]
• 1934 – The Duden records museal.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. A museum, an institution that keeps and exhibits collections of art, history, science or technology: Das Museum ist montags geschlossen.^[8][1]
2. The building of such an institution.^[6][5][9]

Word family

• museal
• Kunstmuseum
• Freilichtmuseum

Related words

• Muse
• Musik
• English museum

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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
3. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 642
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 c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 571
6. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
7. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
8. ^ Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
9. ^ Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag