Etymologically
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drehen

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈdʁeː(ə)n/, [ˈdʁeː.ən], [ˈdʁe.n̩][1]

Forms

drehen (third-person singular present dreht, past tense drehte, past participle gedreht, auxiliary haben)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German dræjen, inherited from Old High German drāen, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *þrāan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *þrēaną.[2][1][3] It continues an old strong verb, kept as such only in Old English þrāwan (“to twist, turn”), the ancestor of English throw; the shift from “turn” to “throw” is a common one.[2][4] The same word is Old Saxon thrāian, Old Frisian drāia and Dutch draaien, and Danish, Norwegian and Swedish took their verbs from Middle Low German.[1][4][5]

The sources trace it to the PIE root Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, bore, turn”) in a form with a long vowel in the second syllable, as also in Draht.[2][3][4] Related are Latin terō (“to rub”), Ancient Greek τείρω (teírō, “to rub, wear down”), τετραίνω (tetraínō, “to pierce”), Lithuanian trinti (“to rub, file”) and Russian тереть (terétʹ, “to rub”);[3][4] in meaning Kluge finds torqueō (“to twist, wind”) the closest.[2] Other extensions of the root are seen in drechseln, drillen, drohen and drücken.[3]

In Old High German the verb belonged to a small class of weak verbs in ⟨-āen⟩ that had once been reduplicating, and an old strong participle gedrân is found in Alemannic texts of that period.[5] Glide consonants filled the gap between the vowels: forms with ⟨h⟩, ⟨w⟩ or ⟨b⟩, ⟨n⟩, and above all ⟨j⟩ or ⟨g⟩, which dominated from the 11th to the 14th century and live on in southwestern dialects.[5] The standard form goes back to the form without a glide; its ⟨h⟩, written from the early 15th century and fixed by the mid-17th, only marks the hiatus, and the vowel has been umlauted since the 12th century.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kluge dates the verb to the 8th century, and Köbler finds drāen first in glosses of about 765.[2][6] Pfeifer gives its Old High German senses as “to round, turn on a lathe, work in relief”, and Middle High German dræjen as “to move by turning, whirl, turn on a lathe”.[3]

Semantic evolution

The verb first named several crafts: turning wood, throwing pots, twisting rope and yarn.[7] Until the 18th century it was often a synonym of drechseln, also figuratively, as in Wieland's ein artig gedrehtes Kompliment “a nicely turned compliment”.[8] It was intransitive in Middle High German and remained so into the 19th century, especially in Goethe: alles, alles scheint zu drehen “everything seems to spin” (Faust I).[8] Drehkrankheit, a disease of sheep with dizziness, is recorded from 1796, its cause Drehwurm from 1807.[8]

Cranks are turned, hence einen Film drehen from the early 20th century, and Drehbuch “screenplay”, listed by Duden in 1929.[8][7] ein Ding drehen “to pull off a job” comes from thieves' cant, and so does Dreh “trick”, about 1900.[7][3] The sailors' sense “to change course” lies behind abdrehen (16th century) and beidrehen.[7]

Timeline

  • c. 765 – Old High German drāen appears in glosses.[6]
  • 12th century – The stem vowel is umlauted.[5]
  • 14th century – Dreher “turner” is recorded.[3]
  • Early 15th century – The spelling with ⟨h⟩ begins; it is fixed by the mid-17th century.[5]
  • 16th century – abdrehen “to change course” is recorded.[7]
  • 1796 – Drehkrankheit is first recorded.[8]
  • c. 1900 – Dreh “trick” comes from thieves' cant.[3]
  • Early 20th century – einen Film drehen appears.[8]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To turn something round its axis: den Schlüssel im Schloss drehen.[9][1]
  2. (reflexive) To rotate, to spin: Das Riesenrad dreht sich langsam.[9][1] sich um etwas drehen: to be about something.[8][1]
  3. To turn into another direction or position: den Kopf zur Seite drehen.[9][1]
  4. Of a vehicle, ship or wind: to change direction; to turn back.[9][1]
  5. To make by turning or rolling: to roll a cigarette; to shape on a Drehbank.[1][8]
  6. To shoot a film: Der Film wurde in Marokko gedreht.[1][8]

Word family

  • Dreher
  • Drehung
  • Dreh
  • Drehbank
  • Drehbuch
  • verdrehen
  • umdrehen
  • abdrehen
  • andrehen
  • aufdrehen
  • beidrehen
  • durchdrehen

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. 215
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  5. ^ a b c d e f 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, 1341
  6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  7. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 213
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  9. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag