Tod

Forms

Tod m (genitive Todes or Tods, plural Tode)^[1] Middle High German had the plural tōde and also tœde with umlaut;^[2] töde was still used in Early New High German.^[2] The spelling Todt was also used in New High German.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German tōt, inherited from Old High German tōd, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *dauþu, inherited from Proto-Germanic *dauþuz (“death”).^[3][4][1] The same word is Old Saxon dōð, Old English dēaþ, the source of English death, Old Frisian dāth, Old Norse dauðr and Gothic 𐌳𐌰𐌿𐌸𐌿𐍃 (dauþus); it continues in Dutch dood and Swedish död.^[3][4][5]

It is an abstract noun formed with the suffix Proto-Germanic *-þuz from the verb *dawjaną (“to die”), preserved in Old Norse deyja.^[3][5][1] Middle High German still had a related verb touwen (“to die”), and the adjective tot belongs to the same family.^[6][4][7]

Outside Germanic the closest match in meaning is Ancient Greek ἀποθνῄσκω (apothnḗiskō, “I die”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰwenə-, and perhaps Latin fūnus (“funeral”) and Old Irish duine (“human being”), “mortal”.^[3][6] Kluge relates these words to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeu- (“to breathe”), the root of Tier, with dying as “breathing out one's life”, but calls the details unclear; Lithuanian dvė̃sti (“to die (of animals)”) beside dvėsúoti (“to breathe heavily”) and Old Church Slavonic давити (daviti, “to strangle”) show a similar shift.^[3] Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *dʰóu(H)-tu-.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kluge dates the word to the 8th century.^[3] Old High German tōd “death” is used in the Isidor, the Muspilli, the Ludwigslied, Otfrid and Notker, in phrases such as in tōde betuon “to let die” and mit tōdu weigen “to put to death”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German tōt could also mean a dead person or a corpse, a violent death and the death penalty.^[4][9] From Middle High German on, Tod- as the first part of a compound often only intensifies: Todfeind “mortal enemy”, todkrank “mortally ill” (16th century), todmüde “dead tired” (early 18th century).^[7][4]

Death is often personified, after the biblical image, as in wo ist dein Stachel, Tod? (1 Corinthians 15:55),^[6] and the figure appears as a skeleton with a Sense.^[10][11] Paul Celan's Todesfuge made der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland a byword for the death camps.^[6] Der Schwarze Tod is the plague and der weiße Tod death in an avalanche or from freezing in snow.^[10]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German tōd is recorded.^[3][11]
• 16th century – todkrank, Todesfall and Todesstrafe are recorded.^[4][7]
• 17th century – Todesangst “fear of death” appears.^[7][4]
• Early 18th century – todmüde “dead tired” appears.^[4][7]
• 1760 – es geht auf Tod und Leben “it is a matter of life and death” is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. death: the end of life, the moment at which all vital functions stop: Nach dem Tod ihres Vaters zog sie nach Bremen.^[10][1]
2. (literary) Death personified, imagined as a grim figure, the Grim Reaper: Der Tod klopfte an die Tür.^[10][11]

Word family

• tödlich
• Todfeind
• Todsünde
• todkrank
• todmüde
• Todesangst
• Todesstrafe

Related words

• tot
• töten
• English death

Usage notes

Tod und Teufel means “all sorts of things or people” (über Tod und Teufel reden), and sich den Tod holen “to catch one's death” is an emotional exaggeration for catching a bad cold.^[10][6] The plural Tode is rare.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 21, 537
3. ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 919
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 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 Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
7. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 332
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
11. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org