besitzen

Forms

besitzen (class 5 strong, third-person singular present besitzt, past tense besaß, past participle besessen, past subjunctive besäße, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German besitzen, inherited from Old High German bisizzen, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *bisittjan (“to sit by, near”), inherited from Proto-Germanic *bisitjaną, a prefixed form of sitzen with be-.^[2][1][3] The same verb is Gothic 𐌱𐌹𐍃𐌹𐍄𐌰𐌽 (bisitan, “to dwell around”), Old English besittan, Old Saxon bisittian and Dutch bezitten.^[4][5] The base verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”), as in Latin sedeō (“to sit”).^[3][6]

The verb first meant to take possession: what was meant was the land on which one actually sits or settles.^[2] Pfeifer sees the original sense in the transitive uses, “to sit around something, sit on it”, as in Gothic “to dwell around” and Middle High German “to besiege”, from which “to take possession, to have” developed.^[4] The Grimms' dictionary starts from sitting bodily on something, as in betreten.^[7] Paul and Wiktionary compare Latin possideō (“to possess”), which contains the same root.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German bisizzen first appears in glosses of the late 8th century, where pisezzan renders Latin possessus, and the 9th-century gloss piseizan renders obsida “siege”.^[5][3] It meant to own, inhabit, besiege, occupy or take into one's care, in the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and the Murbach Hymns.^[9][3]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German besitzen still meant to surround, besiege or occupy as well as to own; the Annolied (about 1085) says that a king besieged Regensburg (die mærin Reginsburch her se bisaz).^[5][10] Demons were said to “sit on” or occupy people, mit dem tiuvele wart er beseʒʒen in the Kaiserchronik, and the participle besessen became an adjective, “possessed by the devil”, and later “obsessed”.^[7][4]

Luther often used the verb for taking a country to dwell in, which led to its main modern sense “to own”, at first of land and soil, later also of cattle, money and abilities.^[8][2] This general sense became frequent only from the 16th century.^[2] Goethe's line from Faust, Was du ererbt von deinen Vätern hast, / Erwirb es, um es zu besitzen (“What you have inherited from your fathers, earn it in order to possess it”), became a household quotation.^[8] In Marxist usage die Besitzenden are the propertied class.^[8]

Timeline

• Late 8th century – Old High German pisezzan glosses Latin possessus.^[5]
• c. 1085 – The Annolied uses bisaz of a siege.^[5]
• 16th century – The sense “to own” becomes common.^[2]
• 15th–16th century – Besitz means a siege, then property.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To own, possess, have as one's property: Seine Großeltern besaßen einen Bauernhof.^[11][1]
2. To have a quality, ability or feature: Sie besitzt großes Talent. Also, somewhat stilted, simply to have: Das Haus besitzt einen Keller.^[11][1]
3. (elevated, euphemistic) To have sexual intercourse with someone.^[11]
4. (rare) To take hold of someone's mind.^[11]
5. (dated) To occupy a place by sitting in it, as in Goethe's Torquato Tasso.^[11][8]

Word family

• Besitzer
• Besitztum
• Besitzung
• Besitz
• Besitzerin
• besessen

Related words

• sitzen
• besetzen
• Latin possideō

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. 114
3. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
4. ^ a b c d Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ a b c d e 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, 1080
6. ^ Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 7, 1302
7. ^ 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, 1625
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 283
10. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
11. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag