Etymologically
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Reihe

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈʁaɪ̯ə/[1]

Forms

Reihe f (genitive Reihe, plural Reihen)[1] Older New High German also had reige, which Adelung still records as regional.[2] Weak singular forms such as in der reihen and masculine forms are also found in older texts.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German rīhe (“row, line, narrow passage”), inherited from Old High German *rīha, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *rīhu.[3][1][4] Beside it, with grammatical change of /h/ and /g/, stand Old High German rīga (“line, curve”) and Middle High German rige (“line, row, ditch”), the source of Riege.[4][3][5] The same word is Middle Low German rige, Middle Dutch rie and Dutch rij, and with ablaut Old English rǣw (“row”), the ancestor of English row.[3][4]

The noun probably comes from a strong verb that is recorded only late: Middle High German rīhen (“to thread, string”), rīgen, rien, West Frisian riuwe (“to string”).[3][4] Pfeifer takes its first sense to have been “to pierce”, then “to put on a stick or thread after piercing”, which fits the old meaning of reihen.[4][6]

Its further origin is unclear.[3] If the starting point was “cleft, stroke”, it may belong to Proto-Indo-European *reyk- (“to scratch, tear”), an extension of Proto-Indo-European *rey- (“to scratch, tear, cut”), with Ancient Greek ἐρείκω (ereíkō, “to break, tear”), Lithuanian riẽkti (“to cut (bread)”) and Welsh rhwygo (“to tear”), though Pfeifer notes the difficulties of meaning.[3][4][5] Wahrig adds Latin rīma (“crack, fissure”).[7] From Old High German rīga came Medieval Latin riga (“line”) and Italian riga (“line, stripe”).[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Notker (about 1000) uses rīga for a curved line, and in his explanation of Latin linea “line” gives the words reiz unde zîla unde rîga, “stroke and row and line”.[8][9][2] Kluge dates the word to the 11th century and the form Reihe to the 13th.[3]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German rīhe also meant a narrow passage and a gutter.[4][5] In Early New High German it was a narrow lane between houses, the drain between two houses and so a privy, a line of things or of written characters, and a furrow for sowing.[10]

The sense moved from a row in space to a sequence in time, and then to a series of books or broadcasts.[6] From the idea of an order in which something happens to one person after another came an der Reihe sein “to be one's turn”, außer der Reihe “out of turn” and der Reihe nach “in turn”.[6] In the older army a Reihe was a file of men one behind the other, while those standing side by side formed a Glied, hence in Reih und Glied.[6] Campe calls Reihenfolge a newly formed word, and Pfeifer dates it to about 1800.[6][4] English tone-row (1936) renders the German term of twelve-note music.[11]

Timeline

  • c. 1000 – Notker uses rīga for a line.[8][6]
  • 11th century – First record of the word.[3]
  • 13th century – The form rīhe appears.[3]
  • c. 1800 – Reihenfolge “order, sequence” is formed.[4]
  • 1936 – English tone-row renders the German musical term.[11]
  • 1988 – Botho Strauß uses the colloquial auf die Reihe bringen “to manage”.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A row of things or people placed one beside or after another: In der dritten Reihe waren noch Plätze frei.[12][1]
  2. A line of people drawn up in order, especially in sport or the army: Die Kinder stellten sich in zwei Reihen auf.[12]
  3. The order in which something happens to one after another; a person's turn: Wer ist jetzt an der Reihe?[12][6]
  4. A series, for example of books or broadcasts: Der Sender zeigt eine Reihe über alte Handwerksberufe.[12][1]
  5. (mathematics) A series: quantities that follow one another according to a rule.[12][1]
  6. A number of similar people or things: Es gibt noch eine Reihe offener Fragen.[12]
  7. (chess) A rank, one of the eight horizontal rows of the board.[12][1]

Word family

  • Reihenfolge
  • reihen
  • reihum
  • einreihig
  • Reihenhaus
  • Sitzreihe
  • Riege
  • English row

Usage notes

In Reih und Glied “in rank and file” means in strict order.[12][6] Etwas auf die Reihe kriegen or bringen is colloquial for “to manage, sort something out”, and bunte Reihe machen is to sit so that men and women alternate.[12][6] Southern German wieder in der Reihe sein means to be well or in order again.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. 14, 636
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 756
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  7. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  8. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 260
  9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  11. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag