betreiben

Forms

betreiben (class 1 strong, third-person singular present betreibt, past tense betrieb, past participle betrieben, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle Low German bedrīven (“to graze cattle on; to carry on”), which is first recorded in Middle Low German and spread into High German in the 16th century, adapted as from German be- + treiben.^[2][3][4][1] The base verb treiben, Middle High German trīben, Old High German trīban, Proto-Germanic *drībaną, is also in Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌴𐌹𐌱𐌰𐌽 (dreiban), Old Norse drífa and Old English drīfan, the ancestor of English drive.^[5] Outside Germanic, Kluge compares only Lithuanian drìbti (“to fall in flakes”), which would make a snowstorm the starting point of the sense.^[5] The same verb is Dutch bedrijven.^[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are Middle Low German, from 1323: bedriven meant to use a meadow or wood for grazing, to drive animals onto a pasture.^[2] In 1549 the Brandenburg estates complained of a captain who grazed their heath mit seinem viech und schaeffen zu betreiben.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The sense of the simple verb, “to occupy oneself with something”, became the main sense of the prefixed verb: to pursue a business, trade or study.^[3][4] Adelung gives both the farming sense and einen Prozeß betreiben, “to pursue a lawsuit actively”.^[7] The pastoral sense lasted into the 19th century and is now only dialectal in eastern Lower Saxony.^[3]

Schiller used it for collecting money, and the Swiss legal sense “to dun a debtor” continues this.^[4][8] The technical sense, to run a machine or plant by some source of power, dates from the second half of the 19th century.^[3] The noun Betrieb came from Middle Low German bedrīf around 1600 and was assimilated to Trieb.^[3]

Timeline

• 1323 – Middle Low German bedriven “to graze” is recorded.^[2]
• 16th century – betreiben spreads into High German.^[3][4]
• c. 1600 – The noun Betrieb comes into High German.^[3]
• Second half of the 18th century – betriebsam is formed.^[3]
• Second half of the 19th century – The technical sense “to drive, power” appears.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pursue, press forward with, work towards: Sie betrieb ihre Versetzung mit großem Eifer.^[8][1]
2. To practise or carry on, especially as an occupation: Er betreibt Landwirtschaft im Nebenerwerb.^[8][1]
3. To run or operate a business or establishment: Ihre Eltern betreiben eine Bäckerei.^[8][1][9]
4. (technology) To drive or power: Die Pumpe wird mit Solarstrom betrieben.^[8]
5. (Switzerland, law) To take legal steps to make a debtor pay.^[8][1]

Word family

• Betreiber
• Betreibung
• Betrieb
• betriebsam

Related words

• treiben
• Trieb
• Dutch bedrijven

Usage notes

Auf jemandes Betreiben (hin) means at someone's instigation.^[8][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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, 1118
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 928
6. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 1711
7. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 1, 943
8. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
9. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org