Zentrum

Forms

Zentrum n (genitive Zentrums, plural Zentren)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German zentrum, borrowed from Latin centrum (“centre of a circle”), from Ancient Greek κέντρον (kéntron, “goad, sting; point of a compass; centre”), from κεντέω (kentéō, “to prick, sting”).^[2][3][4] The point of the Greek word is the fixed leg of a pair of compasses, whose tip marks the centre of the circle drawn round it.^[2][3] Kluge gives the 13th-century form as the adapted zenter, which Pfeifer and the DFWB find only now and then in late Middle High German.^[2][3][5] Until the 19th century the word was mostly written and inflected as Latin, especially after prepositions.^[6][5][3] The same word is Dutch centrum, English centre and French centre.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, from about 1300, belong to geometry and mean the centre of a circle: a text of that time explains centrum as the very middle point.^[5][3] In this sense the word was used until the 19th century, as when Goethe writes of a point drawn im Centro.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From the later 16th century the word meant the middle of a place or region, as in Paracelsus' auss dem Centro der erden “from the centre of the earth”, and at the same time, figuratively, a core or focus from which things start and to which they lead.^[6][5][3] In Paracelsus the soul is the centrum of man, and in 1804 one wrote of the Zentrum of political power.^[7][6] The middle of an army in battle order was also its centre.^[7]

As a party name Zentrum goes back to the members who sat in the middle of the chamber: the Grimms' dictionary dates it to the party of the middle of 1848 and to the Catholic party of the Reichstag of 1871, and Paul gives 1858, with refoundings in 1870 and 1945.^[7][6][8] From the early 20th century it came to mean the middle of a large town, the Stadtzentrum, while since the mid-20th century a facility where services of one kind are gathered, as in Einkaufszentrum and Sportzentrum, competing with English-style Center.^[6][5]

Timeline

• 13th century – Middle High German zenter is borrowed from Latin.^[2]
• c. 1300 – centrum is explained as the very middle point of a circle.^[5]
• Later 16th century – First use for the middle of a place, and figuratively for a focus.^[6][5]
• 1563 – Lautensack's book on compasses names the centre of a circle centrum.^[7]
• 1871 – Zentrum names the Catholic party in the Reichstag.^[7]
• Early 20th century – First use for the centre of a city.^[3][5]
• Mid-20th century – Compounds such as Einkaufszentrum spread.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The centre, middle point: das Zentrum eines Kreises; also figuratively, im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit stehen “to be the centre of attention”.^[8][1]
2. A central place from which things start and to which they lead, a hub: Die Stadt war ein Zentrum des Tuchhandels.^[8]
3. A facility serving a particular purpose, where certain services are gathered: ein Zentrum für Jugendliche.^[8][1]
4. The middle of a town, the town centre: Sie wohnt mitten im Zentrum.^[8][1]
5. (anatomy, physiology) A nerve centre, Nervenzentrum.^[8]
6. (history) The Centre Party, the party of political Catholicism in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic.^[8][1]
7. (chess) The centre squares of the board.^[8][1]

Word family

• zentral
• zentrieren
• Einkaufszentrum
• Stadtzentrum
• Zentrale
• zentralisieren

Related words

• konzentrieren
• Zentrifuge
• English centre

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. 1007
3. ^ a b c d e f g Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 948
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Schulz, Hans; Basler, Otto, et al. (1913–1988), Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch, 7 vols., Strasbourg / Berlin: Trübner / De Gruyter; 2nd ed., ed. Gerhard Strauß et al. (1995–), Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; via OWID, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
7. ^ 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. 31, 642
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag