dienen

Forms

dienen (third-person singular present dient, past tense diente, past participle gedient, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German dienen, inherited from Old High German thionōn, inherited from Proto-Germanic *þewanōną (“to serve”).^[2][3][1] The same verb is Old Saxon thionon, Old Frisian thiānia and Old Norse þjóna, continued in Dutch dienen, Swedish tjäna and Icelandic þjóna;^[2][4] Pfeifer asks whether the Norse verb came from Middle Low German.^[3] Kluge suggests that it replaced an older verb seen in Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌻𐌺𐌹𐌽𐍉𐌽 (skalkinon, “to serve”), from 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌻𐌺𐍃 (skalks, “servant”).^[2]

It is a derivative, with an /n/ extension, of Proto-Germanic *þewaz (“servant, slave”), found in Gothic 𐌸𐌹𐌿𐍃 (þius, “servant”) and Old English þēow (“servant, slave”), and in the first part of Demut.^[2][3][5] The verb thus first meant “to be a servant”, as Latin serviō stands beside servus.^[5][3]

The servant may have been “a runner”: the noun is perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *tekʷ- (“to run, flow”), found in Lithuanian tekėti (“to run, flow”), tekūnas (“runner, messenger”) and Latvian teksnis (“attendant”).^[2][3][5] Pfeifer and the revised Grimm dictionary present this link only as possible.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German dionōn is first recorded in glosses of about 765, and then in the Isidor, the Benedictine Rule, the Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, meaning to serve, wait on, be subject or obliging to someone, and also to humble.^[6][7]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German dienen was used of the service of God, of a lord and of a lady in courtly love, of waiting at table, and of paying dues: a rent could be said to dienen to a monastery.^[8][9][10] The Grimms note that its first sense, to be someone's servant or subject, lived on in Luther's Bible.^[11][12] A special use refers to military service.^[13][10]

With part of the meaning dropped it came to mean “to be helpful, useful”, jemandem mit etwas dienen, and then, with things as subject, “to serve a purpose”, as in Luther's alle Dinge zum Besten dienen.^[13][5] The revised Grimm dictionary notes that the sense of service owed to someone dominated until the second half of the 18th century, and the sense of being suited or used for something since then.^[4] From the noun Diener came, at the end of the 17th century, the sense “a bow”, after the polite formula gehorsamster Diener, which gave dienern “to bow and scrape” in the 19th century.^[3][5]

Timeline

• About 765 – Old High German dionōn appears in glosses.^[6]
• 8th century – thionōst “service”, the ancestor of Dienst, is recorded.^[3]
• 11th century – thionāri “servant” is recorded.^[3]
• 14th century – dienlich “useful” is recorded, according to Pfeifer;^[3][5][13] Duden and Paul date it to the 16th century.^[3][5][13]
• End of the 17th century – Diener takes on the sense “bow”.^[3]
• Second half of the 18th century – The sense “to be used for, serve a purpose” becomes dominant.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To serve: to work for someone in a dependent position, to be in someone's service: Sie diente viele Jahre in einem Gasthaus.^[14][1]
2. To do military service: Er hat zwei Jahre bei der Marine gedient.^[14][1]
3. (elevated) To devote oneself to a cause or a person and work for it: Er diente der Stadt als Bürgermeister.^[14][1]
4. To be useful or intended for something: Die Maßnahme dient dem Schutz der Kinder.^[14][1]
5. To help someone: Womit kann ich Ihnen dienen?^[14][1]
6. To be used as something, to serve as: Die alte Scheune dient heute als Werkstatt.^[14][1]

Word family

• Diener
• Dienst
• dienlich
• bedienen
• verdienen
• Verdienst
• ausdienen

Related words

• Demut
• Dirne

Usage notes

Niemand kann zwei Herren dienen (“no one can serve two masters”) follows Matthew 6:24 in Luther's translation.^[14][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. 199
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 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. 6, 947
5. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 203
6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 73
8. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 426
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
11. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 1103
12. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag