finden

Forms

finden (class 3 strong, third-person singular present findet, past tense fand, past participle gefunden, past subjunctive fände, auxiliary haben)^[1] The past participle long had no ge-: Old High German funtan, Middle High German vunden, and funden in New High German for a long time.^[2] Some writers of the 17th century, such as Hans Sachs and Ayrer, still wrote finnen.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German vinden, inherited from Old High German findan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *finþan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *finþaną (“to find”).^[3][4][1] The same strong verb is Gothic 𐍆𐌹𐌽𐌸𐌰𐌽 (finþan), Old Norse finna, Old English findan, Old Frisian finda and Old Saxon findan, with the modern Dutch vinden, English find and Swedish finna.^[3][4] In West Germanic, and above all on the North Sea coast, the variant with grammatical change (/d/ for /þ/) was generalised, though Old Saxon also has fīðan.^[5]

Its further origin is uncertain.^[3][4] Kluge thinks it most likely a nasalised form of the root Proto-Indo-European *pet- (“to fly, fall”), the root of Feder, comparing the German phrase for “hitting upon” an idea, literally “falling on” it.^[3] Pfeifer, Duden and the revised Grimm dictionary prefer the root Proto-Indo-European *pent- (“to tread, go”), with Ancient Greek πατεῖν (pateîn, “to tread”), πάτος (pátos, “path”) and Latin pōns (“bridge”); finding would then first have been “treading on something, coming upon it”, as in inveniō (“to find”), literally “to come upon”.^[4][6][7] The LIV gives this root the sense “to find a way”.^[7] Duden adds Old Saxon fāði (“walking”) and Old High German fendo (“pedestrian, foot soldier”) to the same family.^[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German findan is recorded from the glosses (765) on and in Isidor, Tatian, Otfrid and Notker.^[9][10] It meant to find or find again, come upon, discover, notice and recognise, but also to learn, decide and devise, and reht findan was to pass judgement.^[10][5] The Monsee fragments, in a manuscript of the early 9th century, have so huuenan so ir findet ladot “whomever you find, invite” to the wedding.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Paul notes that the verb can express either the result of a search or a chance meeting, as in Luther's vnd funden das Kindlin mit Maria seiner mutter (“and found the young child with Mary his mother”).^[11] With abstract objects (Ruhe finden, Gnade finden) it has, since the 19th century, increasingly formed fixed verb phrases such as Beachtung finden “to receive attention” and Verwendung finden “to be used”.^[11] From “come upon in thought” it weakened to “consider, judge”, as in Goethe's Begreife nicht was er an mir find't (“I cannot grasp what he sees in me”).^[11]

Its prefixed verbs developed their own senses: Old High German irfindan “to learn, recognise” (9th century) became erfinden “to invent”, with Erfinder and Erfindung from the 15th century.^[4][6] abfinden was first, in 14th-century Low German legal language, “to deny by a court judgement”; it has meant “to settle a claim, compensate” since the 16th century.^[4] The noun Fund shows the zero grade of the verb; Findling, first a foundling, has also meant a boulder carried by glaciers since the 19th century.^[4]

Timeline

• 765 – Old High German findan appears in glosses.^[9]
• 9th century – First record of Old High German irfindan, the ancestor of erfinden.^[4]
• 14th century – abfinden is used in Low German legal language.^[4]
• 15th century – Erfinder and Erfindung appear.^[4][6]
• 16th century – abfinden “to compensate” and Abfindung appear.^[4]
• 18th century – First record of erfinderisch “inventive”.^[4]
• 19th century – Findling is used for a glacial boulder.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To find by chance or by searching; to discover: Er hat im Park einen Schlüssel gefunden.^[12][1]
2. (reflexive) To turn up, be found: Das verlorene Heft hat sich wieder gefunden.^[12][1]
3. To obtain through one's own efforts: eine Stelle finden, neue Freunde finden.^[12]
4. To arrive at by thinking: eine Erklärung finden.^[12]
5. To find in a certain state: Wir fanden die Tür offen.^[12]
6. To consider, think: Ich finde den Film langweilig.^[1][13]
7. (intransitive) To find one's way: Sie fand allein nach Hause.^[1]

Word family

• Fund
• findig
• fündig
• Finder
• Findung
• abfinden
• Abfindung
• befinden
• empfinden
• erfinden
• Erfinder
• Erfindung
• stattfinden
• auffinden
• herausfinden
• vorfinden
• ausfindig
• spitzfindig

Related words

• Findelkind
• Findling
• fahnden
• English find

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 1641
3. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 295
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
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, 251
6. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 269
7. ^ a b c 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, 501
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
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. 103
11. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
12. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
13. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org