behandeln
Pronunciation
- [bəˈhandl̩n], [bəˈhandəln][1]
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
- To treat someone or something in a particular way: Sie behandelt ihre Kollegen immer höflich.[9][1]
- To treat something with a substance that has a particular effect, to process it: das Holz mit Öl behandeln.[9]
- 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]
- 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
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ 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
- ^ 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
- ^ 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
- ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
- ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
- ^ 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
- ^ a b c Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
- ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag