Etymologically
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entsprechen

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Pronunciation

  • [ʔɛntˈʃpʁɛçən][1]

Forms

entsprechen (class 4 strong, third-person singular present entspricht, past tense entsprach, past participle entsprochen, past subjunctive entspräche, auxiliary haben)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German entsprechen (“to answer, retort; to defend oneself”), from German ent- + sprechen.[2][3][4] The Middle High German verb meant “to answer, reply”, also “to talk someone out of something” and, used reflexively, “to defend or excuse oneself”.[3][5]

The base verb sprechen is a West Germanic strong verb whose further origin is not certain.[6][7]

The modern sense “to correspond, be in keeping with” is probably a semantic loan: Kluge and Paul take it from French répondre (“to answer; to correspond”), which joins the same two meanings,[2][8] while Pfeifer compares other verbs for answering that took this sense, such as Latin respondeō (“to answer”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first recorded in the 12th century.[2] The revised Grimms' dictionary quotes the Jüngere Judith (1130/50), where Judith answers her people: dû ensprach iz aver Jûdith dû schône (“then Judith answered it fairly”).[4] Tauler (14th century) still uses it for “to reply”.[4]

Semantic evolution

The new sense appears in Alemannic in the 16th century, according to Pfeifer.[3] Geiler von Kaysersberg wrote that deed and name should einander entsprechen (“correspond to one another”),[9][8] and the revised Grimms' dictionary quotes him from 1510.[4] The old sense lasted into the 18th century: Frisch's dictionary of 1741 still glosses the verb as Latin respondere.[4][8]

The general use in the sense “to agree, correspond” dates from the middle of the 18th century.[3] Wieland used it in writings printed in Zurich in 1758, and in 1759 Lessing approved of it in the Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend.[8][3] Lessing took it for a Swiss word, while the Grimms' dictionary thought it common to southern Germany and modelled on French répondre and correspondre;[9] Stieler, Dasypodius and Maaler do not list it.[9] From the sense “to agree with” came “to satisfy, live up to” (an expectation, a demand), recorded in Wieland's Agathon (1767).[4]

The present participle entsprechend became an adjective (“corresponding, appropriate”) and a preposition with the dative meaning “in accordance with”;[8] Goethe always placed the preposition after its noun, but today it also stands before it.[8]

Timeline

  • 1130/50 – Jüngere Judith: the verb in the sense “to answer”.[4]
  • 14th century – Tauler uses it for “to reply”.[4]
  • 1510 – Geiler von Kaysersberg uses it for “to be equal to, correspond”.[4]
  • 1741 – Frisch's dictionary still gives the sense “to answer”.[4][8]
  • 1758 – Wieland uses the new sense in his Zurich writings.[8]
  • 1759 – Lessing approves of the new sense.[8][3]
  • 1767 – Wieland's Agathon has “to live up to (an expectation)”.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To correspond to, agree with, be equal to or in keeping with (with the dative): Der Preis entspricht der Qualität.[10][1]
  2. To meet, comply with, grant (a wish, a request, a demand): Die Behörde entsprach dem Gesuch.[10][1]

Word family

  • antworten

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 249
  3. ^ a b c d e f g 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 f g h i j k 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. 8, 1504
  5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  6. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 871
  7. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 628
  10. ^ a b Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag