fehlen

Forms

fehlen (third-person singular present fehlt, past tense fehlte, past participle gefehlt, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German vælen, borrowed from Old French faillir (“to miss, err”).^[2][3][4] Kluge dates the borrowing to the 13th century, but the Grimms' revised dictionary has a record from about 1185.^[2][5] The Old French verb goes back through early Romance to Latin fallō (“to deceive”).^[2][3] The sense “to be absent, missing” is found only in German, but it rests on secondary senses of the French verb, “to escape someone, be lacking, be needed”, as in the impersonal French il faut (“it is necessary”).^[2][3][6]

A variant veilen lived on in Early New High German, chiefly in Central German, probably supported by Middle Low German fēilen, which also came from French.^[3] The same Romance verb was borrowed as Dutch falen, English fail, Swedish fela and Norwegian feile.^[2][4] The noun Fehl was taken separately from Old French faille (“failure, error”).^[3][4] The Grimms doubted the Romance origin and looked for a native source, but the later dictionaries accept the borrowing.^[7][8][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is in Hartmann von Aue's Erec (about 1185), where each of two knights breaks twelve lances âne vælen “without missing”.^[5][9] Ulrich von Lichtenstein (1255) still uses it of a lance thrust that misses its target.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The verb came in as a term of the tournament, for missing the opponent with the lance; already in Middle High German it also meant “to be mistaken”, “to fail” and “to be lacking”, as in French.^[3][4] From the lance it passed to shooting and then to missing any aim, also in a moral sense: in Early New High German, and in Luther, fehlen is “to sin, go wrong”.^[10][4] The missed target was at first in the genitive and was later joined with an; from this came the impersonal es fehlt (mir) an … “there is a lack of …”, the source of the modern main sense.^[4][10] The transitive use “to miss” (Schiller: triff und fehle nicht das Ziel) has given way to verfehlen.^[10]

Fehler appears around 1500, first meaning “a missed shot”, and since the 18th century “mistake” and “defect”.^[4] The noun of the prefixed verb, Verfehlung, dates from the 17th century.^[3] Kashubian felowac was borrowed from the German verb.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1185 – Hartmann von Aue uses âne vælen “without missing” in the Erec.^[5]
• 1255 – Ulrich von Lichtenstein uses the verb of a missed lance thrust.^[5]
• c. 1500 – Fehler appears, first meaning “a missed shot”.^[4]
• 1533 – An Austrian legal record uses feil oder treff of a shot.^[5]
• 16th century – Luther uses the verb for “to sin”.^[10]
• 17th century – Verfehlung “offence” is formed.^[3]
• 1822 – Goethe still writes of Achilles that he throws the lance und fehlt.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. Not to exist, not to be there: in dem Bericht fehlen alle Zahlen.^[11][1]
2. With a dative, to be lacking to someone: mir fehlt die Zeit dafür “I don't have the time for it”.^[11][1]
3. Of a person, to be absent where one ought to be: er hat drei Tage in der Schule gefehlt.^[11][1]
4. To be missed by someone: ihr fehlt uns sehr “we miss you very much”.^[11][1]
5. To be missing, gone or lost: an dem Mantel fehlt ein Knopf.^[11]
6. To be still needed for something: bis zum Ziel fehlen noch zehn Kilometer.^[11]
7. Impersonal, with an, to be in short supply: es fehlt an Lehrern “there is a shortage of teachers”.^[11][1]
8. (literary) To err, to do wrong.^[1][8][10]
9. (dated) To miss a target.^[1][5]

Word family

• verfehlen
• Verfehlung
• fehlbar
• unfehlbar
• Fehler

Related words

• Fehl
• Fehltritt
• falsch
• English fail

Usage notes

Was fehlt dir? asks what is wrong with someone, especially whether someone is ill.^[11] Das hat (mir) gerade noch gefehlt! is an ironic complaint about something that comes at the worst moment, and weit gefehlt! “far from it!” rejects a wrong guess.^[11][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. 284
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 e f g h Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 261
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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, 249
6. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.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, 1422
8. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c d e f Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag