Patient

Forms

Patient m (genitive Patienten, plural Patienten, feminine Patientin)^[1] Beside Patient a weak form Patiente was long used, especially in Low and Central German and in dialects.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin patiēns (“suffering, enduring”), the present participle of patior (“to suffer, endure, put up with”), used as a noun.^[3][4][5] The Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch derives it from the accusative patientem, the form also given by the Early New High German dictionary.^[2][6] The Grimms' dictionary took it from French patient and Italian paziente, but the Fremdwörterbuch holds that borrowing from French has not been shown.^[7][2] The same word is English patient and Swedish patient.^[3] It belongs with Passion, from the same Latin verb.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word was borrowed in the early 16th century and is first found in medical writings, from Begardi's Index sanitatis of 1539 and Ryff's books of the 1540s on, meaning a sick person under a doctor's care.^[2][8][7] It soon passed into general literature, as in a folk song of 1544 and Fischart's Eulenspiegel of 1572.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Before the loanword German had native terms for the sick, above all siech, and the 15th- and 16th-century glossaries list words for “suffering” and “patient” such as lidende and geduldig; krank, which first meant “weak, frail”, could easily take over as the German equivalent.^[2] Writers played on the Latin sense: Grimmelshausen says that some sick people cannot be called Patienten because they lack Patientz, patience.^[8] The word was also used figuratively of a thing needing repair, such as a bad clavichord.^[7] It was borrowed as Modern Hebrew פציינט (patsyent) with the sense “dubious character”.^[9]

Timeline

• 1539 – First record, in Begardi's Index sanitatis.^[8][2]
• 1545 – Ryff's cookbook for the sick speaks repeatedly of the patient.^[7]
• 1572 – Fischart uses the word in a literary work.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A patient, a person treated or cared for by a doctor or another health professional: Die Ärztin hat heute noch vier Patienten.^[10][1]

Word family

• Patientin

Related words

• Passion
• English patient

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. 688
4. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 622
6. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
7. ^ 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, 1503
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. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
10. ^ Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag