Projekt

Forms

Projekt n (genitive Projektes or Projekts, plural Projekte, diminutive Projektchen n)^[1] In the 17th and 18th centuries it was spelled Project.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin prōiectum (“something thrown forward”), the neuter past participle of prōiciō (“to throw forward, stretch out”), from prō- and iaciō (“to throw”).^[3][2][4][1] Pfeifer calls it a learned nominalization of the Latin participle.^[3] Kluge, by contrast, sees it as a Neo-Latin latinization of French projet, a derivative of projeter (“to plan”), which goes back to prōiectō (“to drive out”), an intensive of the Latin verb.^[5] The Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch notes that the French word, itself formed only in the 16th century, lightened the meaning of the German word in the 18th century.^[2] The same word is Dutch project, English project and Swedish projekt.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Leibniz in 1670: Das Project war schon gemacht “the plan had already been made”.^[2] In the second half of the 17th century it was still rare and belonged to serious writing, meaning a plan, draft, proposal or intention.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 18th century the word became very frequent in all kinds of writing, a fashionable word, so that the 18th century could be called the century of projects.^[2] In the 19th century it became less common again, and the dialects knew it only slightly.^[2] The verb projektieren “to plan” dates from the 17th century.^[3][5]

Today it means above all a large planned or ongoing undertaking, such as a building project or a research project.^[4][3] German passed the word on to Polish projekt and Russian проект (proekt).^[1]

Timeline

• 1670 – Leibniz uses Project.^[2]
• 17th century – projektieren appears.^[3]
• 18th century – Projekt becomes a fashionable word.^[2]
• 19th century – Its use declines again.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A project, a planned or already started undertaking, often on a large scale: Das Projekt soll in zwei Jahren abgeschlossen sein.^[4][1]
2. A plan, a draft or scheme.^[6][7]

Word family

• projektieren
• Projektleiter
• Bauprojekt

Related words

• projizieren
• Projektion
• Projektil

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
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 Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
5. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 725
6. ^ Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
7. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de