Etymologically
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Wagen

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈvaːɡən/, [ˈvaːɡŋ̍], [ˈʋaː-][1]

Forms

Wagen m (genitive Wagens, plural Wagen or (regional) Wägen, diminutive Wägelchen n or Wägelein n or Wäglein n or Wagerl n or Wagl n)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German wagen, inherited from Old High German wagan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *wagn, inherited from Proto-Germanic *wagnaz (“wagon”).[2][3][1][4] The same word is Old Saxon wagan, Old Norse vagn, Old English wægn, Old Frisian wein and Dutch wagen, and English wain.[2][3][4] It is a concrete noun from the root of bewegen, Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to move, carry, ride”), and so means “the thing that moves, that rides”.[2][3][5][4] Kroonen reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *uoǵʰ-no-.[4] The same root with a suffix in /n/ is in Sanskrit वाहन (vāhana, “vehicle”) and Old Irish fén (“a kind of cart”); without it, in Ancient Greek ὄχος (ókhos, “chariot”), Old Church Slavonic возъ (vozŭ, “cart”) and Latin vehiculum (“vehicle”).[2][3][5]

Central German had contracted forms such as wain and wān, the first still in the 15th century.[6][7] The umlauted plural is a younger, mainly southern form.[8][9] Waggon, borrowed from English, is ultimately the same word.[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German wagan is first recorded in glosses of about 765, then in Otfrid and Notker; it meant a cart or wagon, and also the constellation of the Great Bear.[10][11] Old High German glosses render with it Latin plaustrum, carpentum, vehiculum and carrum.[6]

Semantic evolution

Unlike Karre, Wagen came above all to mean a vehicle for carrying people, a covered carriage, and it led on to the Kutsche; the gelber Wagen was the mail coach, and Fontane's schwarzer Wagen the hearse.[8] The name of the constellation is older, from the Book of Job (9:9), and the Sonnenwagen “chariot of the sun” comes from classical myth.[8] The Wagenburg, a ring of wagons drawn up as a fortification, arose in the Hussite wars of the 15th century.[8] Shortly before 1900 Wagen became the usual word for a motor car, a short form of Motorwagen, and it also names a railway carriage and a tram.[8][9] English borrowed the brand name Volkswagen in 1958.[12]

Timeline

  • c. 765 – Old High German wagan in glosses.[10]
  • 15th century – The Wagenburg of the Hussite wars.[8]
  • 1555 – Jörg Wickram's Rollwagenbüchlein, named after the covered coach.[8]
  • Before 1900 – Wagen “motor car”, short for Motorwagen.[8]
  • 1958 – English Volkswagen.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A wagon or cart on wheels, drawn by animals, especially horses; also short for a handcart, a pram, a serving trolley or a shopping trolley.[9][1]
  2. A railway carriage or a tramcar: Der dritte Wagen des Zuges war voll.[9][1]
  3. A motor car: Sie hat ihren Wagen in der Garage.[9][1]
  4. (technology) The carriage of a machine, such as a typewriter.[9]
  5. (astronomy) der Große Wagen, the Big Dipper or Plough, and der Kleine Wagen, the Little Dipper.[9][1]

Word family

  • Wagner
  • Wagenburg
  • Kinderwagen
  • Lastwagen
  • Personenwagen
  • Straßenbahnwagen

Usage notes

Das fünfte Rad am Wagen sein “to be the fifth wheel on the wagon” is to be superfluous, and jemandem an den Wagen fahren (1881) to tread on someone's toes.[8][9] Abwarten, wie der Wagen läuft is colloquial for waiting to see how things turn out.[9]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 966
  3. ^ a b c d Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  4. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 916
  6. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 27, 379
  7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  10. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  11. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 367
  12. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de