Etymologically
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betreiben

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Pronunciation

  • /bəˈtʁaɪ̯bən/, [bəˈtʁaɪ̯bən], [-bm̩][1]

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
  • 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