Etymologically
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Verhältnis

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Pronunciation

  • /fɛɐ̯ˈhɛltnɪs/[1]

Forms

Verhältnis n (genitive Verhältnisses, plural Verhältnisse)[1] The older spelling was Verhältniß.[1] In the 18th century the gender wavered between neuter and feminine, as with other nouns in -nis: Christian Wolff and the young Kant used the feminine.[2]

Etymology

It is from German verhalten + -nis, with umlaut; only the oldest record has the form without umlaut.[1][3][2] In the sense “relation” it was proposed in 1667 by Johann Christoph Sturm as a German word for Latin prōportiō (“proportion”).[4][5][6] The verb verhalten is Middle High German verhalten (“to keep closed, hold back”), Old High German firhaltan, which around 800 rendered Latin prōstituō.[4][6][7] See halten for its further origin.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Apart from an isolated early instance in Paul Melissus's version of the Psalms, where it means “keeping, protection” (du bist mein verhaltnis), the noun is only found from the 17th century on and became common in the 18th; the dictionaries before Adelung do not list it.[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Most uses go back to the reflexive verb sich verhalten “to be in a state, stand in a relation”: the noun came to mean a state or situation, and in the plural the circumstances of a person or a place, frequent in Goethe.[2][5] The older construction was Verhältnis mit, in Lessing, Wieland and E. T. A. Hoffmann, where modern German has Verhältnis zu.[5] In mathematics and in the comparison of things it kept the sense of Latin proportio: im Verhältnis zu, in keinem Verhältnis stehen.[5]

From about 1800 colloquial German used it for a love affair (Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften speaks of a secret Verhältnis), and by the end of the 19th century it could name the lover too: sie ist sein Verhältnis.[5] The dreieckiges Verhältnis of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler in its German translation is the source of Dreiecksverhältnis “love triangle”.[5] verhältnismäßig “proportionate, relatively” is recorded by Adelung in 1780, and Campe used Verhältniswort as a German word for Präposition.[5][4]

Timeline

  • c. 800 – Old High German firhaltan renders Latin prostituere.[4]
  • 1667 – Sturm proposes Verhältnis for Latin proportio.[4][5]
  • 18th century – The word becomes common in the senses “relation” and “state”.[4][2]
  • 1780 – Adelung records verhältnismäßig.[4][5]
  • c. 1800 – First use for a love affair, in Goethe's Wahlverwandtschaften.[5]
  • Late 19th century – Verhältnis can also mean the lover.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A ratio or relation in which one thing is compared with or measured against another: im Verhältnis zwei zu eins;[8][1] im Verhältnis zu, compared with: Im Verhältnis zum Vorjahr war der Winter mild.[8][1]
  2. The way someone stands towards a person or thing, a relationship: Sie hat ein enges Verhältnis zu ihrer Schwester.[8][1]
  3. (colloquial) A lasting love affair: ein Verhältnis mit jemandem haben.[8][1]
  4. (colloquial) The person with whom one has such an affair.[8]
  5. (plural) Circumstances, conditions; one's means: in bescheidenen Verhältnissen leben, über seine Verhältnisse leben “to live beyond one's means”.[8][1]

Word family

  • verhältnismäßig
  • Verhältniswort
  • Verhältniswahl
  • Missverhältnis
  • Liebesverhältnis
  • Dreiecksverhältnis

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 25, 515
  3. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 d e f g h i j k Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  6. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 952
  7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag