beenden

Forms

beenden (third-person singular present beendet, past tense beendete, past participle beendet, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is from German be- + enden.^[1][2] The Grimms' revised dictionary first records it in 1564, and the Duden etymological dictionary describes it as an 18th-century word of the chanceries, like the parallel beendigen.^[3][4] The base verb is Middle High German enden, Old High German entōn, from the noun Ende, Proto-Germanic *andijaz (“end”).^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a letter of 1564 by Primož Trubar, who hopes that the printing of the Carniolan church order will soon be beendet “completed”.^[3] The Grimms' dictionary defines it with Latin ad finem adducere “to bring to an end”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb meant to carry something through to its end, and older texts also use it for sealing an agreement: an 1837 book on shepherds' law has a contract beendet und abgeschlossen.^[3] A chronicle of the Anabaptists says under the year 1639 that a community leader hat auch sein lauf beendet, meaning he died.^[3] Herder (1795), Raabe (1884) and later writers used it of a lawsuit, a reading and a piece of work brought to an end, and an intransitive use “to finish speaking” is rare, as in Liliencron.^[3] In computing it is the usual word for closing a program.^[1]

Timeline

• 1564 – First record, of the printing of a church order.^[3]
• 1639 – A chronicle uses sein lauf beendet for a death.^[3]
• 18th century – The verb spreads as a word of official language.^[4]
• 1795 – Herder writes of a lawsuit that is never beendet.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bring something to an end; to finish, complete, conclude: Er beendete seine Ausbildung im Sommer. einen Krieg beenden.^[8][1]
2. To terminate something, to stop it: Die Polizei beendete die Versammlung.^[1][2]
3. (computing) To exit or close a program.^[1]

Word family

• Beendigung

Related words

• beendigen
• verenden
• enden
• Ende

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm, Neubearbeitung (1965–2018), ed. Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, 9 vols. (A–F), Leipzig / Stuttgart: Hirzel, p. 4, 465
4. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
5. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 245
6. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
7. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 1242
8. ^ Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag