holen

Forms

holen (third-person singular present holt, past tense holte, past participle geholt, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German holen or haln, inherited from Old High German holōn beside halōn, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *holōn.^[2][3][1] Kluge reconstructs West Germanic *hal-ō- with a variant *hul-ō-, and the forms with /a/ and /o/ stand in ablaut.^[2][3][4] The same verb is Old Saxon halōn, Old Frisian halia, Old English geholian (“to obtain”) and Dutch halen (“to fetch, pull”).^[2][3]

Its origin is not certain.^[3] It is usually connected with a root meaning “to call”, Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- (“to call, summon”), found in Latin calō (“to call out, summon”), Ancient Greek καλέω (kaléō, “I call”) and Hittite kalleš- (“to call”), and in an old use for the cockerel, Old Irish cailech (“cock”).^[2][3][1] In German the root also gave hell and Hall.^[4][3] The meaning would have gone from “call” to “summon” and then to “fetch”.^[5] Pfeifer mentions a second view, which starts from “to pull, bring with effort” and compares Ancient Greek κάλως (kálōs, “rope”), but Frisk keeps that word apart as a technical loan.^[3] Old Norse hala (“to pull”), from which come English haul and hale, is in Kluge's view probably of another root that may have influenced this one, while Wiktionary treats the English verb as a cognate.^[2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German halōn, holōn appears in glosses from about 765, and then in the Tatian, Otfrid, the Muspilli, the Ludwigslied and Notker.^[6][7] Its senses were “to fetch, bring; to call, summon; to take”.^[7][6] The Tatian renders Latin voca virum tuum “call your husband” as halô thînan gomman, and the Old Saxon Heliand uses halôn the same way.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The old sense “call” lasted where the object is a person: one holt the doctor or the police, and already in Old High German a man holt a wife.^[8][9] The cry hol über! to the ferryman is found in the Nibelungenlied.^[10][8] The curse der Teufel soll dich holen “the devil take you” dates from the 17th century.^[10] Reflexive sich etwas holen, of illness, blows or death, was used by Jean Paul, and Atem holen “to draw breath” is in Stieler.^[10] In seamen's language holen means to haul or pull, and regionally it means simply “to buy”.^[9][4]

Among the derivatives, erholen first meant “to obtain, recover”, then “to recover one's strength”, and überholen (16th century) “to overtake”; its technical sense “to overhaul” translates English overhaul in seamen's language around 1870.^[3][4] Polish took holować “to tow” from German in 1675.^[11]

Timeline

• About 765 – Old High German halōn appears in glosses.^[6]
• 9th century – The variant holēn is recorded.^[3]
• 16th century – überholen “to overtake” appears.^[3]
• 17th century – The curse der Teufel hole dich is recorded.^[10]
• 1675 – Polish holować “to tow” is borrowed.^[11]
• About 1870 – überholen “to overhaul” is calqued on English.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To go and fetch, to get and bring back: Kannst du Milch aus dem Kühlschrank holen?^[9][1]
2. To call or bring someone to where they are needed: den Notarzt holen.^[9][1]
3. To collect and take away: Die Altkleider werden am Montag geholt.^[9]
4. (euphemistic) To arrest someone; of death, to take someone away.^[9]
5. (reflexive) To get, ask for: sich bei einer Kollegin Rat holen.^[9][12]
6. (colloquial) To win: eine Goldmedaille holen.^[9][12]
7. (reflexive, colloquial) To catch an illness or something unpleasant: sich eine Erkältung holen.^[9][1]
8. (nautical) To haul, pull in.^[9]
9. (regional) To buy.^[9]

Word family

• abholen
• aufholen
• ausholen
• einholen
• erholen
• Erholung
• herausholen
• nachholen
• überholen
• wiederholen
• zurückholen

Related words

• hell
• Hall
• hallo
• holla
• Dutch halen

Usage notes

Bei ihm ist nichts zu holen means that someone has nothing that could be taken from him, for example by creditors.^[9][10] Atem holen and Luft holen are “to draw breath”.^[10][12]

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. 422
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
5. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
6. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 139
8. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 1741
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
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 Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
12. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org