fallen

Forms

fallen (class 7 strong, third-person singular present fällt, past tense fiel, past participle gefallen, auxiliary sein)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German vallen, inherited from Old High German fallan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *fallan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *fallaną (“to fall”).^[2][3][4][1] The same verb is Old Saxon fallan, Old Norse falla, Old English feallan and Old Frisian falla, and today Dutch vallen, English fall and Swedish falla.^[2][4][5] Gothic has no such verb and uses Gothic 𐌳𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐌰𐌽 (driusan) instead.^[2][6] The double ⟨ll⟩ goes back to an older present formed with a nasal suffix.^[3][4]

Its further origin is uncertain: Kluge finds no secure comparison outside Germanic.^[2][7] Kluge and Pfeifer compare Lithuanian pùlti (“to fall”), which would need a lengthened grade, and Armenian words for “collapse” and “to fall”, such as Old Armenian փլանիմ (pʻlanim, “to fall”);^[2][3][8][1] Pfeifer adds, more doubtfully, Ancient Greek σφάλλω (sphállō, “to make fall, overthrow”), and sets up a root Proto-Indo-European *pʰōl- (“to fall”).^[2][3][8][1] Kroonen and Wiktionary instead follow a newer explanation as a univerbation of Proto-Indo-European *h₂pó (“off, away”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₃elh₁- (“to fall”), which would also connect Ancient Greek ἀπόλλυμι (apóllūmi, “to destroy”).^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German fallan is recorded from the end of the 8th century in glosses and in the Monsee fragments, and then in Tatian, Otfrid, Notker, the Muspilli and the Murbach hymns.^[9][10][11] It meant “to fall, tumble down, come to a fall, collapse, sink, perish”, and also “to fall to someone's share”.^[5][10] Old High German Tatian (about 830) uses it in the parable of the sower: andaru fielun in steinahti lant “others fell on stony ground”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Fallen at first denotes a sudden downward movement caused by weight, and so, of living beings, an involuntary one, distinct from sinken.^[8] From the fall of dice came the uses die Würfel fallen “the die is cast” and a decision or judgement “falls”; words and shots also “fall”.^[8][12] A city or fortress “falls” when it is taken, and a soldier “falls” in battle.^[8][12] Water, a thermometer or prices fall when their level goes down, the opposite of steigen.^[8]

Until the 17th century past forms modelled on another verb class occur occasionally.^[7] The verb forms many prefixed and particle verbs, such as auffallen (18th century), einfallen (Middle High German īnvallen, in the sense “come to mind” from about 1500 in Middle Low German) and gefallen.^[3][13] The noun Fall, Old High German fal, took the senses “case, event” from the image of falling dice, under the influence of Latin cāsus and French cas.^[3]

Timeline

• Late 8th century – Old High German fallan appears in glosses and the Monsee fragments.^[9]
• c. 830 – fallan in the Old High German Tatian.^[7]
• 12th century – First records of fallen meaning “to be (the case)”, without movement.^[7]
• c. 1500 – Middle Low German invallen is used of thoughts “coming to mind”.^[13]
• 17th century – Irregular past forms after another verb class die out.^[7]
• 18th century – auffallen “to attract attention” is formed.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To fall, drop by its own weight: Die Birnen fallen ins Gras.^[12][1]
2. To fall over, lose one's balance and fall to the ground.^[12]
3. To hang down or slope down: Das Haar fällt ihr auf die Schultern.^[12]
4. To go down, decrease, decline (of a level, temperature, price or value).^[12][1]
5. (military) To be killed in battle.^[12][1]
6. To fall, be captured or overthrown (of a city, a government).^[12][1]
7. To fall on a day or within a period (of an event or holiday).^[1][14]
8. To be heard, ring out (of a shot), or to be made (of a remark or decision).^[1][12]

Word family

• Fall
• fällig
• Gefälle
• auffallen
• ausfallen
• einfallen
• Einfall
• durchfallen
• befallen
• verfallen
• gefallen
• zufallen

Related words

• Falle
• fällen

Usage notes

Fixed phrases are ins Gewicht fallen “to carry weight”, fallen lassen “to drop, give up (a plan, a friend)” and flachfallen (colloquial) “not to take place”.^[8][12] Ein gefallenes Mädchen was, in the moral view of earlier times, a young woman who had lost her virginity outside marriage.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 274
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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 3, 36
6. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 1277
7. ^ 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. 9, 86
8. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 95
11. ^ Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (1952–), founded by Elisabeth Karg-Gasterstädt and Theodor Frings, Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag / De Gruyter; online awb.saw-leipzig.de
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
13. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 254
14. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org