behandeln

Forms

behandeln (third-person singular present behandelt, past tense behandelte, past participle behandelt, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German behandeln (“to touch with the hand”), formed from German be- + handeln.^[1][2][3] The same formation is Middle Low German behandelen and Dutch behandelen.^[2][1]

handeln is Old High German hantalōn (“to touch, feel, handle”), a derivative of Hand, like Old Saxon handlon, Old Norse hǫndla and Old English handlian, whose descendant is English handle.^[4][5] Its first meaning was “to take in the hand, grasp”.^[4] The noun is Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌿𐍃 (handus), from Proto-Germanic *handuz (“hand”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first found, once, in the Sankt Trudperter Hohelied of about 1160, in the sense “to reach out a comforting hand”: God's goodness treats our complaints alsô ainer guͦten muͦter hant “like the hand of a good mother”.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In 1377 a guild rule fines anyone who obel behandelt “treats badly” another member, but the sense “to deal with someone in a certain way” stayed rare until the second half of the 18th century, when it became the main use.^[2] From the 16th century the verb also meant “to work on, process” a material and, in Early New High German, “to negotiate”;^[7][4][8] Adelung still records eine Ware behandeln “to agree on the price of goods”.^[7][4][8] The medical sense “to try to heal” and the use for a subject treated in speech or writing developed from “to work on”.^[7][3]

Under National Socialism the verb served first as a cynical euphemism for torture and then, as a code word, for killing; compare Sonderbehandlung.^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1160 – First record, “to reach out a comforting hand”, in the Sankt Trudperter Hohelied.^[2]
• 1377 – Obel behandelt “treated badly” is recorded.^[2]
• 16th century – The senses “to work on, process” and “to negotiate” appear.^[7][4]
• Second half of the 18th century – “To deal with someone” becomes the main sense.^[2]
• 1793 – Adelung records behandeln of a subject, a person and a bargain.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To treat someone or something in a particular way: Sie behandelt ihre Kollegen immer höflich.^[9][1]
2. To treat something with a substance that has a particular effect, to process it: das Holz mit Öl behandeln.^[9]
3. To represent something in a particular way, especially in art; to discuss a matter or topic; to analyse and present it in a scholarly way.^[9][1]
4. To give medical treatment to a patient, or to treat an illness or injury in order to heal it.^[9][1]

Word family

• Behandlung
• Behandler
• Sonderbehandlung

Related words

• handeln
• Hand
• verhandeln
• misshandeln

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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, 655
3. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 1325
4. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
6. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
8. ^ a b c Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
9. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag