Verlust

Forms

Verlust m (genitive Verlustes or Verlusts, plural Verluste)^[1] The word was feminine in Gothic, Old Saxon, Old High German and Middle High German; masculine gender prevailed in New High German.^[2] A form verlurst, modelled on verlur, is found in Middle and New High German, for instance in the Zimmern Chronicle.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German verlust, inherited from Old High German firlust, also farlust, inherited from Proto-Germanic *fralustiz (“loss, ruin”).^[3][4][1][5] The same word is Gothic 𐍆𐍂𐌰𐌻𐌿𐍃𐍄𐍃 (fralusts, “loss, perdition”), Old Saxon farlust, Middle Low German vorlust and Middle Dutch verlust.^[3][4][5] It is an abstract noun with a t-suffix, formed to the verb verlieren, built on the zero grade of its root.^[3][4]

The noun keeps the old /s/ of the root, while the verb has /r/ (from Germanic /z/) in some of its forms; the Duden compares Frost beside frieren.^[6][4] A noun of the same verb formed in another way, with /r/, is Old High German firlor (“destruction, dispossession”), Middle High German verlor (“ruin”), Old Saxon farlor and Old English forlor.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German firlust occurs only in Tatian (about 830), meaning “loss, waste, perdition”, translating Latin perditio.^[5][7] In an Old Saxon example farlust means “death”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German verlust also meant “waste, ruin, harm, sorrow, damnation”.^[8][4] According to the Grimms' dictionary the meaning has otherwise not changed: it is both the losing, as an event, and the thing lost.^[2] Adelung narrowed it to the loss of something good, and to the harm this causes: Eines Gewinn ist des andern Verlust “one man's gain is another's loss”.^[9] In modern German it is also used of losses in battle and of a firm's deficit.^[10][4]

The adjective verlustig, Middle High German verlustec “having suffered a loss”, now lives almost only in set phrases such as einer Sache verlustig gehen “to forfeit something”.^[4][6][11]

Timeline

• c. 830 – Old High German firlust in Tatian.^[7][5]
• 1172–1190 – Middle High German verlust in the Marienleben of Wernher.^[8]
• 1259 – verlust in a charter.^[8]
• 16th century – Josua Maaler knows the word only as a masculine.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The loss of something one had: der Verlust des Ausweises;^[10][1] in Verlust geraten (officialese, “to get lost”).^[10][1]
2. The loss of a person through death: Der Verlust ihrer Großmutter traf sie schwer.^[10][12]
3. Loss, forfeiture of something; in plural, losses in battle, casualties: schwere Verluste erleiden.^[10]
4. A financial loss, deficit: Das Unternehmen arbeitet mit Verlust.^[10][12]

Word family

• verlustig

Related words

• verlieren
• verloren
• Los

Usage notes

Verlust renders English loss in all senses except a lost game or battle, for which German uses Niederlage.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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, 828
3. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 954
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 d Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 3, 296
6. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 900
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
10. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
11. ^ Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
12. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org