Etymologically
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Streit

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Pronunciation

  • /ʃtʁaɪ̯t/[1]

Forms

Streit m (genitive Streites or Streits, plural Streite or Streits)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German strīt, inherited from Old High German strīt, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *strīd, inherited from Proto-Germanic *strīdaz (“battle, fight”), the noun belonging to streiten.[1][2][3] The same noun is Old Saxon strīd (“strife, zeal”), Old Norse stríð (“grief, distress, fight”), Middle Dutch strijt and Old Frisian strīd, continued in Dutch strijd and Swedish strid;[4][2][5] Old English has it only in the Genesis translated from Old Saxon.[4][2][5] The verb, Proto-Germanic *strīdaną, is also Old English strīdan (“to stride, straddle”), whose sense lives on in English stride.[3][2]

The further origin is unclear.[3] Kluge suggests either a basic sense “to spread apart”, which could lead to “part ways, quarrel” and to “straddle, stride”, or influence from schreiten on the English meaning, and compares Lithuanian strainùs (“stubborn”).[3] Pfeifer and Duden start from a sense “to be stubborn, resist” (compare Old Norse stríðr (“hard, obstinate”)) and set up Proto-Indo-European *strē̆idʰ-, an extension of the root of starren.[2][5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German strīt is recorded from 765 in glosses, and in the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and early confessions, meaning strife, discord, uprising, a lawsuit and also a fight or war.[7][8][2] Paul takes the oldest sense to be “distress, pain”, from which “zeal, eager effort” developed, as in Old Saxon.[9]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German strīt was above all an armed fight, a battle, and also a lawsuit, a contest, resistance and an army.[10][2] Luther's Bible uses it constantly for war (in den Streit ziehen), and Adelung (1798) says that this sense was obsolete in ordinary High German but still used in the elevated style.[11] Pfeifer dates the turn: at the end of the 18th century Kampf took over the armed sense, so that since the 19th century Streit has mostly meant a dispute in words or law and a quarrel.[2] The old sense survives in Streitaxt (about 1400), Streitwagen (15th century) and Streitmacht (18th century).[2][5]

Learned disputes have been called Streit since Fischart (ein newer glehrter streit), and the legal Rechtsstreit, Streitfall and Streitwert belong to the language of the courts.[9][2] Streitschrift “polemic” dates from the 17th century, Streithammel “quarrelsome person” from about 1800, and die Streitaxt begraben “to bury the hatchet” from the 19th century.[2]

Timeline

  • 765 – Old High German strīt appears in glosses.[7]
  • c. 1400 – First record of Streitaxt.[2]
  • 1405 – strittig is recorded in a dispute about a water pipe.[9]
  • 15th century – First record of Streitwagen.[2]
  • 17th century – First record of Streitschrift.[2]
  • End of the 18th century – Kampf replaces Streit for armed combat.[2]
  • c. 1800 – First record of Streithammel.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A quarrel, dispute or argument, a heated clash of views or interests, sometimes coming to blows: Die Nachbarn liegen seit Jahren im Streit.[6][1]
  2. (dated) A fight, battle: in den Streit ziehen.[6][1]

Word family

  • Streitaxt
  • Streithammel
  • streitig
  • Streitigkeit
  • Streitwagen
  • Wettstreit
  • Rechtsstreit
  • Streitkraft
  • streitbar
  • strittig
  • streiten
  • Streiterei
  • starren
  • English stride

Usage notes

An unrelated Streit was an old name of the Immergrün (lesser periwinkle), recorded in glossaries from the 13th–14th century and in herbals of the 16th century.[12][13] Upper German also has a form Stritt, from Early New High German, used mostly for legal disputes.[4]

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 k l m n o p Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  3. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 891
  4. ^ 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. 19, 1310
  5. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 832
  6. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  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. 317
  9. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  11. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  12. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 19, 1309
  13. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de