Etymologically
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betonen

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Pronunciation

  • /bəˈtoːnən/[1]

Forms

betonen (third-person singular present betont, past tense betonte, past participle betont, auxiliary haben)[1]

Etymology

It was formed in the 18th century from German be- + Ton, from the noun in the sense “stress, accent”.[2][3][4][1]

That noun is Middle High German dōn or tōn (“melody, song, sound”), from Latin tonus (“tension of a string; tone”);[5][3] Old High German still used the Latin form.[5][3] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos, “stretching, tension”), from τείνω (teínō, “to stretch”), which is related to dehnen.[5][2][3] Pfeifer adds that the borrowed word fell together with a native one, Old High German tuni (“din, roaring”) (11th century), the same as Old English dyne and English din, so that the Middle High German noun could also mean noise.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Adelung (1793) records the verb as a term of grammar, for putting the stress on a syllable, and sets a betonte Sylbe against an unstressed one.[6][4]

Semantic evolution

From the beginning of the 19th century the verb also meant “to emphasise, bring out”, as in Gutzkow.[4] The past participle betont then came to mean “emphatic” and even “deliberate, exaggerated”, as in mit betonter Nachlässigkeit “with studied carelessness”.[4] Goethe also used the verb for setting a text to music: von Gluck betont, set by Gluck.[7] The noun Betonung is also from the 18th century.[2]

Timeline

  • 18th century – betonen and Betonung are formed.[2][3]
  • 1793 – Adelung records eine Sylbe betonen as a grammatical term.[6][4]
  • early 19th century – The sense “to emphasise” appears.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To stress a syllable or word in speaking or singing: Sie betonte den Namen auf der zweiten Silbe.[8][1]
  2. To emphasise, point out with force: Der Bürgermeister betonte, dass die Brücke saniert werde.[8][1]
  3. To make something stand out, accentuate it: Das Kleid betont die Schultern.[8]

Word family

  • Betonung
  • betont
  • unbetont
  • Ton
  • tönen
  • English tone

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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
  3. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 862
  4. ^ a b c d e f Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  5. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 920
  6. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  7. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 1705
  8. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag