Ziel

Forms

Ziel n (genitive Zieles or Ziels, plural Ziele)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German zil, inherited from Old High German zil, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *til, inherited from Proto-Germanic *tilą.^[2][1][3] As a noun it is recorded only in German,^[3] where only High German developed it fully, Low German having given it up.^[4] Its family is well attested in the other Germanic languages: the verbs Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍄𐌹𐌻𐍉𐌽 (gatilōn, “to achieve”), Old English tilian (“to strive; to till the soil”), Old Frisian tilia, Old Saxon tilian (“to obtain”) and Old High German zilēn (“to strive, hurry”); the preposition Old Norse til (“to, until”) (whence English till), also found in Old English and Old Frisian;^[2][3][1] Old Norse aldrtili (“end of life, death”); and the adjective Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍄𐌹𐌻𐍃 (gatils, “fitting”), to which the Old English and Old Frisian adjective meaning “good” corresponds.^[2][3][1]

Its further origin is unclear.^[3] Kluge compares Welsh eddyl (“aim”), from *adilo-, beside addas (“fitting”), and further Latin ad (“to, at”).^[2] Pfeifer and the Duden consider either the root of Zeit, with a first sense “what is divided off, measured”, then “end point in space or time”, or a root Proto-Indo-European *ad- (“to set, order”) with Old Irish ad (“law”) and the Welsh words.^[3][5] Wiktionary likewise derives it from Proto-Indo-European *deh₂y- (“to divide”) and relates it to the Germanic words for “time”, though the details are unclear.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kluge dates zil to the 9th century and a feminine zila to the 8th.^[2] Old High German has only a single gloss of the 8th or 9th century, cil for Latin destinatum “target”, beside the somewhat better attested zila “zeal, effort”.^[4] Schützeichel and Köbler give the sense “limit, boundary, end”.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German zil became a rich word: the goal of a race, a shot or an attack, a fixed purpose or intention, and a fixed point or end of time.^[8][9][4] The target of shooting gave über das Ziel hinausschießen, to overshoot the mark, and in a race the goal was once a post.^[10] From the end of the movement came the sense “limit”, as in Luther's einer Sache ein Ziel setzen and the pair Maß und Ziel.^[10] The sense “appointed date, term”, especially a date of payment, is recorded in commercial language from 1283, with auf Ziel “on credit” from 1466; it survives mainly in southern German, where the plural could be Zieler.^[10][11]

Zielstrebig was coined by the Baltic naturalist Karl Ernst von Baer as a German word for “teleological”;^[3][10] the GDR term Zielstellung is recorded from 1959.^[10] The word was borrowed into Polish as cel (1450), into Hungarian as cél (1456) and into Russian as цель (1550), as well as into Czech and Slovak.^[12][1]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German zila is recorded.^[2]
• 9th century – zil is recorded.^[2]
• 1283 – Ziel in the sense “date of payment”.^[10]
• 1450 – Polish cel is first recorded.^[12]
• 1456 – Hungarian cél “intention” is first recorded.^[12]
• 1466 – Auf Ziel “on credit” is recorded.^[10]
• 1834 – Zielbewusst is recorded.^[10]
• 1876 – Zielstrebig is used by Karl Ernst von Baer.^[10]
• 1959 – Zielstellung is recorded in the GDR.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. The place someone wants to reach, a destination: unser Ziel heute ist Basel.^[13][1]
2. (sports) The end of a course, the finish: als Zweite durchs Ziel gehen.^[13][1]
3. A target aimed at in shooting or throwing.^[13][1]
4. An aim, a goal or purpose one works towards: sich ein Ziel setzen.^[13][1]
5. (commerce, regional) A term or date of payment.^[10][11]

Word family

• zielen
• ziellos
• zielstrebig
• zielbewusst
• zielgerichtet
• Lebensziel
• Reiseziel
• Zielgruppe
• Ziellinie
• Zielscheibe

Related words

• Zeit
• English till

Usage notes

Über das Ziel hinausschießen (colloquial) is to go too far; it pictures an archer who draws the bow too hard, so that the arrow flies past the target.^[13][10] In football the goal is Tor, not Ziel.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 1009
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. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 31, 1040
5. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 951
6. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 407
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 1112
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
11. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
12. ^ a b c Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
13. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag