Ort

Forms

Ort m (genitive Ortes or Orts, plural Orte or (jargon) Örter, diminutive Örtchen n)^[1] Beside the plural Orte there is Örter, which the Grimms' dictionary describes as more individual against the collective Orte.^[2] In the 15th and 16th centuries the plurals örte and ört were also used.^[2] Early New High German, and Upper German still today, also treated the word as a neuter.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German ort, inherited from Old High German ort (“point, tip”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *oʀd, inherited from Proto-Germanic *uzdaz (“point”).^[4][5][1] The same word is Old Saxon ord, Old Norse oddr (“point of a weapon, spear”), Old English ord and Old Frisian ord, and today Dutch oord, Swedish udd and Icelandic oddur.^[4][6][7] It is not recorded in Gothic, but the Old Norse /dd/ points to an older /zd/.^[2][6] The first meaning was “point”, especially the point of a weapon, then “outermost end”, and, seen as a location, “region, spot”.^[4][8]

Its further origin is uncertain.^[5] Outside Germanic, Kluge and Orel compare Lithuanian usnìs (“thistle”) and Albanian usht (“ear of grain”), which share the sense “point”.^[4][7] Pfeifer adds Latvian usne (“thistle”) and Old Irish fennaid (“flays”) and sets up a root Proto-Indo-European *u̯es- (“to prick”).^[5][9] Kroonen suggests instead an old compound of Proto-Germanic *uz (“out”) and the root Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put”), comparing Lithuanian iñdas (“vessel”), literally “in-put”.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German ort is recorded from the last quarter of the 8th century in glosses and in the Hildebrandslied, and later in Notker, meaning “point of a weapon, hook, sting, corner, edge, border, end”.^[10][11] The Hildebrandslied says that gifts should be received with the spear, ort widar orte “point against point”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German ort named the outermost point in space and time: beginning and end, the point of a weapon or tool, a corner or edge, a quarter of the sky, and also a place.^[5][12] From “corner, end” the word came to mean “part of space, place”, already in Middle High German, and it was paired with Stelle in an Ort und Stelle.^[3][4] It then became the general word for a town or village.^[3][13]

The old sense “point” survives regionally in Ort “awl”, and “end, corner” in place names such as Ruhrort and Darßer Ort.^[5][13] Miners used Ort for the end of a gallery, where the work is done; from there vor Ort came to mean “on the spot”, especially in journalism.^[3][13] The diminutive Örtchen became a euphemism for the toilet, in the 17th century according to Pfeifer and the Duden and in the 19th according to Paul; plain Ort had occasionally been used so in the 15th century.^[5][13][3] The mining word was borrowed into Polish as ort in 1564 and into Russian as орт (ort) in 1735.^[14]

Timeline

• Last quarter of the 8th century – Old High German ort appears in glosses and the Hildebrandslied.^[10]
• Around 1000 – ortōn “to give corners to, bound” is recorded.^[5]
• 15th century – Ort is used for the privy.^[5]
• 1544 – Hungarian borrows ort “quarter of a measure or coin”.^[14]
• 16th century – The miners' verb orten “to meet at an acute angle” appears.^[5]
• 1564 – Polish ort “mining gallery” is recorded.^[14]
• 17th century – Örtchen is used for the toilet.^[5][13]
• 1727 – örtlich “local” is recorded.^[3]
• 18th century – Ortschaft “village, locality” appears.^[5]
• 20th century – orten “to determine the position of” appears.^[5][13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A place, spot or location where someone or something is or where something happens: am Ort des Unfalls.^[15][1]
2. A particular place within a room or building: ein ruhiger Ort zum Lesen.^[15]
3. A village, small town or locality: in einem kleinen Ort an der Küste wohnen.^[15][1]
4. The inhabitants of such a place: der ganze Ort feierte.^[15][1]
5. (mathematics, astronomy; plural Örter) A locus, or the position of a star.^[15][16]
6. (Switzerland, historical) A canton of the Old Swiss Confederacy.^[15][1]
7. (mining; neuter, plural Örter) The end of a gallery, the working face.^[1][3]
8. (dated or regional) An awl.^[1][5]

Word family

• örtlich
• Örtlichkeit
• orten
• Ortung
• Ortschaft
• Örtchen
• erörtern
• allerorten

Usage notes

Older German also used Ort for a quarter of a coin, and then of a weight or measure, as in Ortstaler and Ortsgulden.^[3][1] Paul derives this use from the sense “corner”,^[3] while Wiktionary treats it as a separate word, from Middle Low German ort “leftover, fragment”, related to English orts “scraps”.^[1] Adelung had already connected the sense “piece” with the Low German Ort for fodder left by cattle.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 13, 1350
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
4. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 674
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 6, 1210
11. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 246
12. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 169
13. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
14. ^ a b c Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
15. ^ a b c d e f 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
17. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf