Etymologically
Log in

falsch

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 20 October 2026 at 18:29. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • /falʃ/, [fälʃ], [fältʃ][1]

Forms

falsch (strong nominative masculine singular falscher, comparative (rare) falscher, superlative (uncommon) am falschesten)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German valsch (also vals), borrowed from Old French fals, from Latin falsus (“false, deceptive”), the past participle of fallō (“to deceive”).[2][3][4] The ending ⟨sch⟩ comes from Middle Dutch valsc, in which the French loan had been reshaped after native adjectives in ⟨-sc⟩; through the poems of Heinrich von Veldeke this form spread east.[2][3][5] The verb fälschen is older: Old High German falscōn is recorded in the 9th century and felsken in the 10th or 11th, probably taken from Vulgar Latin *falsicō, a shortening of Late Latin falsificō (“to falsify”), and Pfeifer thinks its existence helped the form with ⟨sch⟩ to take hold.[3][4][6]

Wiktionary instead derives the adjective from an unrecorded Old High German *falski, Proto-West Germanic *falskī (“false, counterfeit”), formed from the verb;[1] the Grimms likewise inferred an Old High German adjective from the verb and, from the 10th-century personal name Falsco, noting that native words for “false” were used in Gothic and in Old High German.[7] The same Latin word gave Dutch vals, English false, French faux, Swedish falsk and Icelandic falskur,[2] and the Latin verb is also the source of fehlen.[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Paul and Pfeifer place the first records in West Central German of the 12th century.[5][3] The revised Grimm dictionary quotes Der Wilde Mann (about 1170/80) on someone choosing with valiser list “false cunning”.[8] Middle High German valsch meant “faithless, dishonest, untruthful” of people and “not genuine, counterfeit, wrong, deceptive” of things, as in falsche pfenning “counterfeit pennies”.[9][3]

Semantic evolution

Paul sorts the uses into three groups: “not genuine” (false gems, coins, signatures, hair), “insincere, deceitful” (a false heart, a false tongue) and “incorrect” (a false report, a false opinion, wrong spelling).[5] Luther's commandment Du solt kein falsch zeugnis reden wider deinen Nehesten (Exodus 20:16) uses the third sense.[5] In regional colloquial speech it also means “angry”, as in Schiller's der Vater schnitt ein falsch Gesicht.[5] Duden notes that it is often said of human character, and especially of forged things such as coins and jewellery.[4]

The noun Falsch “deceit” (Middle High German valsch, also “counterfeit money”) survives only in ohne Falsch, kept alive by Luther's Bible: seid klug wie die Schlangen und on falsch wie die Tauben (Matthew 10:16).[3][10][5] Falschmünzer appears in the 16th century beside falscher Münzer, and Falschspieler in the 17th.[3][4] Pfeifer dates Fälschung to the 16th century, Duden to the 18th.[3][4] The word was borrowed into Polish (fałsz), Czech (faleš), Russian (фальшь) and Romanian (falș), and into Hungarian as fals (1878).[1][11]

Timeline

  • 9th century – Old High German falscōn “to refute, declare false”.[3]
  • 12th century – Middle High German vals, valsch in West Central German.[5][3]
  • c. 1170/80 – valisch in Der Wilde Mann.[8]
  • 16th century – Falschmünzer.[3]
  • 17th century – Falschspieler.[3][4]
  • 1878 – Hungarian fals is first recorded.[11]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Imitation, artificial, made to look like the real thing: falsche Wimpern.[12][1]
  2. Forged, counterfeit: ein falscher Ausweis.[12][1]
  3. Not matching the facts, wrong, mistaken: Wir sind in den falschen Bus gestiegen. falsch verbunden sein “to have dialled the wrong number”.[12][1]
  4. Faulty, incorrect: Die Rechnung ist falsch.[12][1]
  5. Not fitting the situation, misplaced: falsche Scham.[12][5]
  6. Untruthful, deceitful, two-faced: ein falscher Kollege.[12][1]

Word family

  • Falsch
  • Falschheit
  • fälschlich
  • fälschlicherweise
  • Falschgeld
  • Falschmünzer
  • Falschspieler
  • fälschen
  • Fälscher
  • Fälschung
  • verfälschen

Usage notes

Falsch spielen can mean either “to break the rules of a game” or “to cheat at a game”.[5] The noun survives in an jemandem ist kein Falsch and ohne Falsch sein “to be honest and sincere”.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 275
  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 e f g Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 271
  5. ^ 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
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 1291
  8. ^ a b 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, 102
  9. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 12
  10. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 1293
  11. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag