Etymologically
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geraten

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Pronunciation

  • /ɡəˈʁaːtn̩/, /ɡəˈʁaːtən/[1]

Forms

geraten (class 7 strong, third-person singular present gerät, past tense geriet, past participle geraten, auxiliary sein)[1] The older spelling was gerathen.[1] Beside the umlauted present gerätst, gerät, forms without umlaut (geratest, geratet) were also used, and Alemannic had gerotet.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German gerāten, inherited from Old High German girātan (“to advise, decide”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *garādan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *garēdaną (“to take forethought, intend”).[3][4][1] It is the verb raten with the prefix ge-, and at first it was only a stronger, perfective form of that verb.[3][4][2] The same formation is Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐍂𐌴𐌳𐌰𐌽 (garēdan, “to provide for, take care of”), Old Saxon girādan (“to procure, bring about”) and Middle Low German gerāden, and it survives in Dutch geraden (“to guess”).[4][1] Köbler traces the root to Proto-Indo-European *rēdʰ- (“to prepare, arrange”), following Pokorny.[5]

The modern senses grew out of the old one in steps: “decide”, then “bring about”, then “succeed”, according to Kluge.[3] Pfeifer suggests instead that the sense “to arrive somewhere, come into a state”, found from Middle High German and Middle Low German on, attached itself to a rare Middle High German sense “to hit upon”, compare rāten (“to guess right”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German girātan is first recorded in glosses of the end of the 8th century, and then in Otfrid, Notker and the poem De Heinrico, meaning “to advise, deliberate, decide”, also “to carry out” and “to turn to”.[5][6][4] The Gothic Bible uses garēdan for Greek “to take thought for” (2 Corinthians 8:21), and the Old Saxon Heliand for bringing something about by counsel or care.[2]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German gerāten still meant “to advise, order, decide” (in the Nibelungenlied Hagen says daʒ gerætet nimmer mîn lîp, “I will never advise that”), but it also meant “to succeed, thrive”, “to get somewhere” and “to begin”.[2][4][7] The Early New High German dictionary records all of these and a further sense, “to do without”, from the noun Rat in its old meaning “renunciation”; in the 17th century the written language gave this sense up to entraten.[8][4]

In modern German the verb describes the chance result of a movement (in Gefahr, in Brand, in Vergessenheit geraten, “to get into danger”, “catch fire”, “fall into oblivion”), and the way something develops or turns out, especially well;[9] Paul has examples from Luther, Goethe and the Grimms' dictionary.[9] From an imperative wish formula, compare Middle High German wol gerāten “thrive well”, came the noun Geratewohl, now only in aufs Geratewohl “at random, on the off chance” (16th century).[4][3][9] Slovene borrowed the verb as gratati “to become, turn out, succeed”.[10]

Timeline

  • End of the 8th century – Old High German girātan is first recorded, in glosses.[5][4]
  • 16th century – aufs Geratewohl “at random” appears.[4][9]
  • 1570 – First record of nach den Eltern geraten “to take after one's parents”.[9]
  • 17th century – The sense “to do without” gives way to entraten in the written language.[4]
  • 1727 – außer sich geraten “to lose one's composure” is recorded.[9]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To get somewhere by chance, to stray or end up (often to one's harm): Die Wanderer gerieten in einen Hagelsturm. (colloquial) an jemanden geraten, to come up against someone.[11][1]
  2. To get into a state or situation: in Schulden geraten, in Vergessenheit geraten, in Brand geraten, außer sich geraten.[11][1]
  3. To succeed, turn out well: Das Brot ist heute geraten.[11][1]
  4. With an adverb: to turn out in a certain way: Der Pullover ist ihr zu weit geraten.[11]
  5. nach jemandem geraten, to take after a parent or grandparent: Er gerät ganz nach der Großmutter.[11][1]

Word family

  • Geratewohl
  • raten
  • Rat
  • entraten
  • Old High German girātan

Usage notes

The adjective geraten “advisable” (Es schien mir geraten, früher abzureisen) is the past participle of raten, not of this verb; in older German it also meant “well grown, successful”.[12][1]

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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 5, 3567
  3. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 350
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  6. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 253
  7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  11. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  12. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 5, 3576