See

Forms

See m (genitive Sees, plural Seen)^[1] As die See (feminine, genitive der See, plural Seen) it means the sea.^[1][2] The plural Seen properly belongs to the feminine; the masculine formerly also had the plural See or Seee.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German sê, inherited from Old High German sēo, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *saiwi, inherited from Proto-Germanic *saiwiz (“sea, lake”).^[4][1][5] The same word is Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐌹𐍅𐍃 (saiws, “lake, marshland”), Old Norse sær (also sjór), Old English sǣ, Old Frisian sē, Old Saxon sēo and Dutch zee, and English sea.^[4][6][5]

Its origin is unclear.^[4][6][7] Kluge suggests a form Proto-Germanic *saigwi- belonging to seihen “to strain, trickle”, though no clear reason for the name appears (“the water that has gathered drop by drop, the pool”?).^[4] Meid argued for this explanation, comparing the root Proto-Indo-European *seikʷ- (“to pour out, trickle”), and Kroonen also takes the noun as probably derived from the Germanic verb behind that word; a parallel is Old High German gisig (“swamp, pool”) beside the verb “to trickle”.^[6][5][8] Koivulehto connected it with Old English sā (“tub”), the lake being a natural water container, as Latin lacus meant both lake and trough.^[6] Orel compares saevus (“fierce”) and Latvian sīvs (“sharp”).^[9] Others, Sausverde among them, take it from a non-Indo-European substrate language.^[4][6][7]

The word was originally masculine; a feminine arose beside it in English and German, and in Middle High German, Middle Low German and Middle Dutch the gender wavered.^[4][6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German sēo is recorded from the third quarter of the 8th century in glosses, and then in Tatian, Otfrid, Notker, the Ludwigslied and the Wessobrunn Prayer, meaning “lake, sea; pond, body of water”.^[10][11] The Gothic saiws renders Greek límnē “lake”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German sê meant both an inland lake and the sea, usually as a masculine.^[12][13] In Middle Low German the word for the sea was mostly feminine, and the German split by gender (der See “lake”, die See “sea”) appears first in the 16th century, in the Pomeranian Kantzow.^[7][6][4] It was fully established in the literary language only in the 19th century;^[6][3] Paul still finds wavering in the 18th.^[6][3] In the south See can also mean a pond.^[3]

The feminine took on seamen's phrases: in See stechen (1720), zur See fahren (1781), and since the 17th century it has also meant “swell, waves”.^[3] Many compounds came from Dutch: Seemann (1641) beside older Dutch zeeman, seekrank as a loan translation of zeeziek.^[3][7] Seehund (1495) is a folk-etymological remaking of the older selhund, while Seerose (16th century) belongs to the lake sense.^[3][7] The word was borrowed from early Norse into Finnish as saivo (“clear spot in a lake”).^[8]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German sēo appears in glosses.^[10][4]
• 1495 – Seehund replaces selhund.^[3]
• 16th century – Kantzow distinguishes der See and die See.^[6][3]
• 1641 – Schottelius records Seemann.^[3]
• 17th century – See takes the sense “swell”.^[3]
• 1720 – In See stechen is recorded.^[3]
• 1871 – Heinrich Pfeil's song gives the phrase still ruht der See.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (der See) A lake: a large body of standing water in a hollow of the land: Am Ufer des Sees steht eine Hütte.^[14][1][15]
2. (die See, no plural) The sea, the ocean: auf hoher See, zur See fahren.^[2][1][15]
3. (die See, nautical) The state of the sea, swell: schwere See.^[2][1]
4. (die See, nautical) A large wave, especially one breaking over a ship.^[2][15]

Word family

• Seemann
• Seehund
• seekrank
• Seerose
• Seefahrt
• Nordsee
• Ostsee
• Binnensee
• Übersee
• Tiefsee
• Seenot

Related words

• Seeschifffahrt
• seihen
• Meer
• English sea

Usage notes

Still ruht der See (colloquial, “the lake lies still”) means that nothing is happening; it comes from a song composed in 1871 by Heinrich Pfeil.^[14] Fixed nautical phrases use the feminine: auf See “aboard a ship at sea”, in See stechen “to put to sea”, and zur See in naval ranks such as Leutnant zur See.^[2][3] Adelung in 1793 already gave the feminine for the sea and the masculine for an inland lake.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Duden. Deutsches Universalwörterbuch (2007), 6th ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 838
5. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
7. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
8. ^ 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. 15, 2807
9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 277
12. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 840
13. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
14. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
15. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
16. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf