Etymologically
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Weg

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Pronunciation

  • [veːk], [veːç][1]

Forms

Weg m (genitive Weges or Wegs, plural Wege, diminutive Wegchen n or Weglein n)[1] The final consonant was written ⟨c⟩ in Middle High German (wec, genitive weges); spellings with ⟨k⟩ such as wek and weck are found in the 15th century.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German wec, inherited from Old High German weg, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *weg, inherited from Proto-Germanic *wegaz (“way”).[3][4][1] The same word is Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌲𐍃 (wigs), Old Norse vegr, Old English weg, Old Frisian wei and Old Saxon weg, and today Dutch weg, English way, Swedish väg and Icelandic vegur.[3][5][4]

Kroonen and Orel derive the noun from the strong verb Proto-Germanic *weganą (“to move, carry”), the source of bewegen, wägen and wiegen, which belongs to the root Proto-Indo-European *weǵʰ- (“to carry, bring, travel”).[5][6][3][4] In meaning Kluge and Pfeifer compare Lithuanian vėžė̃ (“wheel track, sledge track”), and Kluge also, with doubts about the sounds, Latin via (“road”).[3][4][2] They take the first sense to have been “track, rut”, tied to the verb's sense “to travel”.[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German weg is recorded from the 8th century, first in glosses and then in Isidor, the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and many other texts, meaning “way, road, path, course, passage, journey”.[3][7][4]

Semantic evolution

Paul describes the first sense as a strip of ground made for moving along in a given direction, then the stretch that must be covered to reach a goal, and finally the act of moving in a direction, a walk or journey.[8] Like other words of motion it is used figuratively: der Weg zum Erfolg, auf dem Weg der Besserung.[8] Old Norse vegr and Old English weg could already mean “manner, method”, a sense German shares.[2]

Many phrases are old: zuwege bringen “to bring about” goes back to Old High German zuo wege bringan “to bring onto the right way” (9th century); jemandem aus dem Wege gehen “to avoid someone” is recorded in the 16th century, jemandem im Weg sein in the 17th and jemandem über den Weg laufen “to run into someone” in the 19th.[4][8] Den Weg allen Fleisches gehen “to die” is biblical.[8] The plant name Wegerich “plantain”, Old High German wegarīh (9th century), was shaped after personal names in -rīh.[4]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German weg appears in glosses.[3][7]
  • 9th century – zuo wege bringan and wegarīh “plantain” are recorded.[4]
  • 1060–1065 – Middle High German wec is used by Williram.[9]
  • 15th century – Spellings wek and weck appear.[2]
  • 16th century – jemandem aus dem Wege gehen is recorded.[4]
  • 17th century – jemandem im Weg sein is recorded.[4]
  • 19th century – jemandem über den Weg laufen is recorded.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A path, track or lane, often unpaved, for walking or driving: ein schmaler Weg durch die Felder.[10][1]
  2. The route to a place: der Weg zum Bahnhof.[10][1][11]
  3. A distance to be covered; a walk, trip or errand.[11][8]
  4. A method or means: auf diesem Weg, Mittel und Wege finden.[1][8]
  5. (with a preposition) Someone's course, the space needed to move: jemandem im Weg stehen.[1][10]

Word family

Usage notes

The adverb weg “away”, pronounced with a short vowel, is the same word: it comes from Middle High German enwec, Old High German in weg “on the way”, like English away from Old English on weg.[3][12][8] The preposition wegen goes back to the dative plural, from Middle High German von … wegen “on the part of”.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 27, 2852
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 975
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  6. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  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
  11. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
  12. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 923