Urteil

Forms

Urteil n (genitive Urteiles or Urteils, plural Urteile, diminutive Urteilchen n)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German urteil, inherited from Old High German urteili, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *uʀdailī (“what is handed out”), inherited from Proto-Germanic *uzdailiją (“judicial decision”).^[1][2] It is an old noun formed beside the verb erteilen “to allot, impart”, Old High German irteilen, with the stressed form of the prefix that is unstressed in the verb (see ur- and er-); the base is Teil.^[3][2][4] Old High German had several forms beside one another, the neuter urteili, the feminines urteilī and urteila, and urteil of all three genders.^[2][5]

The same noun is Old Saxon urdēli, Middle Low German ōrdēl, Dutch oordeel and Old English ordāl, whence English ordeal, the trial by which God was believed to judge.^[2][1] According to Kluge the noun was specialised out of the phrase tuom irteilen, Old Saxon dōmos ādēlian “to give judgement”, and the verb itself could also mean “to pass sentence”.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German urteili is first found in the Lex Baiuvariorum, before 743, and Pfeifer dates it to the 8th century.^[5][2] It appears in Isidor, the Monsee fragments and Otfrid, and urteil in the glosses from the second quarter of the 9th century, meaning a judgement or verdict, a court and a right.^[6][5] From the start the word was used in the legal sense “allotment of right”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The meaning “what is handed out” was narrowed early to the verdict a judge gives.^[4] The general sense “opinion, view” grew up in the mystical writing of the Middle Ages, and the neuter gender prevailed only in the 18th century.^[2] Paul notes that the genitive beside Urteil now names the judge, while Luther could still use it for the person judged (das Urteil der großen Hure, Revelation 17:1), and that Christian Wolff first used the word for the logical judgement, the joining or separating of two concepts.^[7] A weakened form Urtel survives in dialects and was once frequent in literature as well.^[7]

The verb urteilen, Middle High German urteilen, replaced the older erteilen in the sense “to pass judgement”.^[2][7] Urteilskraft dates from the 17th century and Urteilsvermögen from the 18th.^[2] The word was borrowed into Hungarian as ortály (1575) and into Czech and Slovak as ortel and ortieľ.^[8]

Timeline

• Before 743 – Old High German urteili appears in the Lex Baiuvariorum.^[5]
• c. 800 – A form urteilida is recorded.^[2]
• 9th century – The forms urteilī, urteila and urteil appear.^[2]
• 1227 – Middle High German urteile appears in charters.^[9]
• 1575 – Hungarian ortály “judgement, decision” is first recorded.^[8]
• 17th century – First record of Urteilskraft.^[2]
• 18th century – The neuter gender prevails.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (law) A judgement, verdict or sentence: the decision of a court that settles a case at one instance: Das Gericht verkündet das Urteil am Freitag.^[10][1]
2. An opinion or assessment, especially a considered one by an expert: Sie wollte das Urteil einer Fachfrau hören.^[10][1]
3. (philosophy) A judgement in the logical sense, a piece of knowledge put into a proposition.^[10][7]

Word family

• urteilen
• beurteilen
• verurteilen
• aburteilen
• Vorurteil
• Urteilskraft
• Urteilsvermögen
• Todesurteil
• Gottesurteil

Related words

• erteilen
• Teil
• English ordeal

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 945
4. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 891
5. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
6. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 365
7. ^ a b c d Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
8. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag