Etymologically
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Richtung

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈʁɪçtʊŋ/, [ˈʁɪçtʰʊŋ][1]

Forms

Richtung f (genitive Richtung, plural Richtungen)[1]

Etymology

It is formed from German richten + -ung, from the verb in its sense “to align, aim”, and is recorded in its present meaning from the 18th century.[2][3] The same formation existed much earlier as Middle High German rihtunge (“judgement, settlement”) and Old High German rihtunga (“court, rule, government”), but those nouns belonged to other senses of the verb that have since disappeared.[2][3][4] Wiktionary traces the word in an unbroken line through these forms to Proto-West Germanic *rihtungu.[1]

The verb richten is a Germanic factitive “to make straight” formed from the adjective recht, also found in Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍂𐌰𐌹𐌷𐍄𐌾𐌰𐌽 (garaihtjan), Old Norse rétta and Old English rihtan.[2][3] The adjective is an old participle of Proto-Indo-European *reǵ- (“to direct, guide”), like Latin rēctus (“straight”).[5] The Grimms note that the noun is found mainly in German, and elsewhere only in Old Norse rétting and Old English rihting.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German rihtunga is found from the end of the 8th century in glosses, in the Benedictine Rule and in the Muspilli, meaning “court of justice” and “(monastic) rule”.[7][8][3] Middle High German rihtunge meant a court's judgement, the settling of a dispute and a peace treaty.[9] The modern word first meant “straightening, upright posture” in the second half of the 18th century: in 1774 Mastalier, translating Horace, describes a young nobleman sitting on his horse ohne richtung “without any bearing”.[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Early New High German richtung still meant chiefly a legal decision, an arbitration, a settlement or compensation, beside “orientation towards something”.[10] The modern sense, the course of a movement towards a goal, appears at the end of the 18th century, and the Duden dictionary dates the word as a whole to about 1800.[3][11] In the early 19th century it came to mean a trend or movement in culture and politics.[3] Dutch richting (1786) and Polish rycht “direction of fire” (1849) are counted among German loans.[12]

In informal German, Richtung is also used without a preposition before a place name or a point of the compass, as a shortening of in Richtung.[1][4]

Timeline

  • End of the 8th century – Old High German rihtunga “court, rule” appears in glosses.[7][3]
  • 1774 – The modern word is used for “upright posture”.[6][3]
  • End of the 18th century – The sense “direction, course” appears.[3]
  • Early 19th century – The sense “trend, movement” in culture and politics appears.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. direction, the line along which something moves towards a goal: Sie fuhren in die falsche Richtung.[4][1]
  2. (military) Alignment of a formation in a straight line.[4]
  3. A trend or school within a field of thought, art or politics: eine neue Richtung in der Malerei.[4][1]

Preposition

  1. (informal) towards, in the direction of, without implying arrival: Der Zug fährt Richtung Hamburg.[1][4]

Word family

  • Fahrtrichtung
  • Gegenrichtung
  • Himmelsrichtung
  • Windrichtung
  • Geschmacksrichtung
  • Richtungswechsel
  • richtungsweisend

Usage notes

In the informal prepositional use the following noun stays uninflected, because it was originally in apposition to Richtung in the phrase in Richtung.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 766
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  5. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 751
  6. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 14, 905
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 261
  9. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 437
  10. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  11. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  12. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de