Etymologically
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glauben

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈɡlaʊ̯bən/, [ˈɡlaʊ̯.bm̩], [-bən][1]

Forms

glauben (third-person singular present glaubt, past tense glaubte, past participle geglaubt, auxiliary haben)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German gelouben, inherited from Old High German gilouben, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *galaubijan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *galaubijaną (“to believe”).[2][1][3] The same verb is Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌻𐌰𐌿𐌱𐌾𐌰𐌽 (galaubjan), Old Saxon gilōƀian, Old English gelīefan and Dutch geloven, and with another prefix English believe.[2][3][4] The modern form with ⟨au⟩ is Upper German; it was supported by the noun Glaube against the Central German variant with umlaut, which Luther used.[1][5]

Its origin is explained in two ways.[2][3] Pfeifer, Duden and Paul take it as a prefixed verb in ablaut with lieb and Lob, meaning “to hold dear, approve”.[3][4][5] Kluge starts from the Old High German verb used reflexively with the genitive, “to give up, renounce”, and connects it with the root of erlauben, Proto-Indo-European *lēu- (“to let go”); he compares the old phrase for believing in Sanskrit and in Latin crēdō, “to set one's heart on”, since “to allow” is close to “to rely on”.[2] Wahrig and Köbler also mention, with doubt, a link with Laub as fodder used to make animals tame.[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German gilouben is recorded in glosses of 765 and in many early texts, among them the Benedictine Rule, Isidor, Tatian, Otfrid and Notker, meaning “to believe, trust, agree”.[7][8] Reflexive with the genitive it meant “to give up, abandon, renounce”.[8][2]

Semantic evolution

Pfeifer and Duden hold that the verb already named the trusting bond between people and a god before Christianity, which is why Gothic, Old English and Old High German missionaries could use it for Ancient Greek πιστεύω (pisteúō) and Latin crēdere.[3][4][9] From trusting a person's words it came to mean “to hold true”, and then, already in Old High German, “to suppose, think”.[3] Luther introduced glauben an for Latin credere in, as in gleubt an das Evangelium (Mark 1:15).[5]

The legal sense of trusting someone with money gave Gläubiger “creditor” in the 14th century, a translation of Latin creditor.[3] Adelung records the colloquial er muss daran glauben for someone who cannot escape something unpleasant.[10]

Timeline

  • 765 – Old High German gilouben appears in glosses.[7]
  • c. 800 – The adjective giloublīh “credible” is recorded.[3]
  • 14th century – Gläubiger “creditor” is formed after Latin creditor.[3]
  • 15th century – glaubwürdig “credible” appears, first in law.[3]
  • 16th century – Luther translates Mark 1:15 with glauben an.[5]
  • 17th century – beglaubigen “to certify” appears.[4]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To think, suppose: to hold something possible or likely.[11][1]
  2. To wrongly believe someone or oneself to be somewhere or something.[11]
  3. To believe: to hold true, to trust a statement or a person.[11][1]
  4. With an: to trust in, to have confidence in someone or something; to believe something exists.[11][1]
  5. To have religious faith, to be a believer.[11][12]

Word family

  • gläubig
  • glaublich
  • Glaube
  • glaubhaft
  • glaubwürdig
  • Gläubiger
  • beglaubigen
  • Aberglaube

Usage notes

Daran glauben müssen (colloquial) means to be unable to escape something, and also to die.[10][1] Wer's glaubt, wird selig (“whoever believes it will be saved”) is a joking expression of disbelief, after Mark 16:16.[11]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. 362
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 343
  5. ^ a b c d Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  6. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 207
  9. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 7, 7819
  10. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  11. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  12. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org