Etymologically
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Rat

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Pronunciation

  • /raːt/, [ʁaːt][1]

Forms

Rat m (genitive Rates or Rats, plural Räte)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German rāt, inherited from Old High German rāt (“advice; supplies”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *rād, inherited from Proto-Germanic *rēdaz (“advice, counsel”), the verbal abstract of raten, *rēdaną.[2][3][1] For West Germanic, Kluge reconstructs an i-stem *rǣdi-; the same word is Old Saxon rād, Old English rǣd and Old Frisian rēd, while Old Norse ráð is a neuter a-stem.[2] Kluge also lists Dutch raad, Swedish råd and Icelandic ráð, and Wiktionary adds English rede.[2][1] No Gothic noun is recorded, but the verb is attested as Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌳𐌰𐌽 (garēdan).[4]

The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *rēdʰ- (“to arrange, advise”), also in Old Irish rád (“speaking, saying”) and Old Church Slavonic радити (raditi, “to care for”);[2] Kluge takes it as probably an extension of the root *arə- (“to fit together”), as in Art.[2] The Grimms' dictionary, in contrast, found nothing certain to compare outside Germanic.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German rāt is first recorded in glosses of 765, and then in the Ludwigslied, Otfrid, Notker and Williram.[5][6] Its senses range from “advice, plan, decision” and “way out, rescue” to “assembly” and “supplies, yield, wealth”.[6]

Semantic evolution

Pfeifer, Duden and Paul take “the means needed to keep a household” as the first sense, preserved in Hausrat, Vorrat and Unrat, in Gerät and in Heirat, literally “provision for the house”.[3][7][8] From the providing of such means came “help, remedy, way out”, still heard in Rat schaffen and kommt Zeit, kommt Rat, and then “well-meant advice”.[3][8] The Grimms see the starting point in the care that the head of a family or a ruler owed to those in his charge.[4]

Already in Old High German the word meant “deliberation”, then “council”, later “board, authority” (Stadtrat, Staatsrat). The single member of such a body gave rise to titles such as Geheimrat and Studienrat.[3][7] After 1917 it rendered Russian совет (sovet) in communist usage, as in Arbeiterrat and Rätedemokratie.[8] Swabian sources of the 15th century write raut, and Franconian ones of the 16th rot.[4]

Timeline

  • 765 – Old High German rāt appears in glosses.[5]
  • Around 800 – rātgebo “adviser” is recorded.[3]
  • Around 1000 – rātelōs “unadvised, undecided” is recorded.[3]
  • 1445 – A Swabian chronicle writes grosz und clainer raut.[4]
  • 1462 – First record of ratslag “advice, deliberation”.[8]
  • 16th century – ratsam “advisable” appears.[3]
  • 1624 – First record of the phrase Rat und Tat.[8]
  • After 1917 – Rat renders Russian sovet.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. advice, a recommendation: Kannst du mir einen Rat geben?[9][1]
  2. A way out of a difficulty, a remedy: Da wusste niemand mehr Rat.[9]
  3. A council, an advisory or decision-making body: der Wissenschaftliche Rat des Instituts.[9][1]
  4. (politics) A local council with administrative or legislative tasks: Der Rat der Gemeinde tagt am Montag.[9][10]
  5. (communist usage, usually plural) A soviet, a revolutionary organ of power.[9][8]
  6. A member of a council, a councillor: Sie wurde zum Rat gewählt.[9][1]
  7. The title of various officials, also an honorary title: Geheimer Rat, Studienrat.[9][1]

Word family

  • raten
  • Gerät
  • Heirat
  • Rätsel
  • English rede

Usage notes

The plural Räte is now used only for councils and their members; for pieces of advice the plural is Ratschläge.[8] Fixed phrases include mit Rat und Tat “with advice and practical help”, jemanden zu Rate ziehen “to consult someone”, mit sich zu Rate gehen “to think something over” and da ist guter Rat teuer “it is hard to know what to do”.[9][8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 747
  3. ^ a b c d e f g 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 d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 14, 156
  5. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  6. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 253
  7. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 674
  8. ^ 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
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  10. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org