gestalten

Forms

gestalten (third-person singular present gestaltet, past tense gestaltete, past participle gestaltet, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is from German Gestalt + -en, formed in the 16th century.^[2][3][1] The noun Gestalt, Middle High German gestalt (“appearance, nature”), arose from the old past participle of stellen, Old High German gistalt, which was used early as an adjective “shaped, made, of a certain kind”; the noun thus meant “what has been set or placed”.^[3][4][2] In modern German that participle has been replaced by gestellt, but it lives on in ungestalt.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dasypodius's dictionary of 1537 explains gestalten with Latin figurare, formare, fingere “to shape, form, fashion”, and Maaler (1561) has it of birds building nests.^[5] The Early New High German dictionary gives the senses “to shape, form, give structure to; to plan” and, of people, “to form, train”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

An early intransitive sense “to have a shape, appear” is listed by Henisch.^[5] From the 16th century it was also used figuratively of shaping manners and minds, and in Early New High German it could mean giving something the look of being lawful.^[5][6] Adelung (1793) still called the verb Upper German, with only the participle gestaltet in High German use, as in ein wohl gestalteter Mensch.^[7] It became general in the literature of the late 18th century: Goethe wrote of a cloud sich gestaltend umgestaltet, shaping and reshaping itself.^[5] Danish borrowed it as gestalte.^[5] The noun Gestaltung “shaping, design” is also from the 16th century.^[2]

Timeline

• 1537 – Dasypodius records gestalten “to shape, form”.^[5]
• 16th century – Gestaltung “shaping” is formed.^[2]
• 1793 – Adelung calls the verb Upper German.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To give something a certain form or appearance; to shape, design, arrange: Die Schüler gestalteten das Programm des Schulfests.^[8][1]
2. sich gestalten: to develop in a certain way, to turn out: Die Suche gestaltete sich mühsamer als gedacht.^[8][9]

Word family

• Gestaltung
• Gestalter
• gestaltet
• mitgestalten
• umgestalten

Related words

• Gestalt
• stellen
• ungestalt

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
3. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 355
4. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 321
5. ^ a b c d e f Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 5, 4190
6. ^ a b Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
7. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
8. ^ a b Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
9. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org