müssen

Forms

müssen (preterite-present, third-person singular present muss, past tense musste, past participle gemusst, past subjunctive müsste, auxiliary haben)^[1] Middle High German had muoz, plural müezen, past muoste and muose; the standard language later shortened the stem vowel.^[2][3] Spellings with the old diphthong were still written in the south in the 17th century, and Bavarian muass “must” keeps it today.^[2][1] The participle is gemusst, occasionally gemüßt (Hauff).^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German müezen, inherited from Old High German muozan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *mōtan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *mōtaną, a preterite-present verb whose present tense continues an old past.^[4][5][1] The form Proto-Germanic *mōt meant roughly “I can, I find the opportunity”.^[4] The same verb is Old Saxon mōtan, Old Frisian mōta, Old English mōtan and Middle Dutch moeten, with the present singular mōt.^[4][6][5] Dutch moeten and English must continue it; the English word comes from the old past tense, which now has present meaning.^[4][3]

Kluge calls its origin unclear.^[4] Duden, Paul and Orel connect it by ablaut with messen “to measure”, the sense being “to have something measured out to oneself: time, room, the occasion to do something”, and the Grimms' dictionary also starts from the allotting of a space.^[7][3][8][2] Kroonen instead derives it from a root Proto-Indo-European *mod- “to approach”, and Wiktionary gives both a perfect of Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure, take care of”) and a link with Proto-Germanic *mōtą (“meeting”).^[6][1] The umlaut of modern ⟨ü⟩ is historically unexpected.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb appears from the Abrogans glosses of the 8th century on, and then in Otfrid, Notker and other Old High German texts.^[5][9] Its Old High German senses were “to be able, to have the opportunity, to be allowed”, and only occasionally “to be obliged”: the glosses render Latin carēre “to lack” with ni muoz.^[5][10][2]

Semantic evolution

Paul takes the original sense to be “to come to be in a position to do something”; as the stress fell on the circumstances bringing this about without, or against, the subject's will, the modern sense “to be compelled” emerged, which is general in positive statements already in Middle High German.^[3] The Grimms' dictionary also places the full development of this meaning after Old High German.^[2] Its use for a logical inference (das muß sehr wahr sein “that must be very true”) is a later development.^[3]

In negative sentences the verb went another way: “circumstances do not bring it about” became “one is not allowed to”, a sense still frequent in the Luther Bible and in Lessing, and alive in northern German, where das musst du nicht tun means “you shouldn't do that”.^[3][11] German muss was borrowed into Czech as muset, and Upper Silesian Polish has the saying jak mus to mus “if one must, one must”.^[12]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German muozan in the Abrogans glosses.^[4][5]
• c. 1200 – Middle High German müezen in the Nibelungenlied.^[13]
• 17th century – Southern writers still spell the stem with a diphthong.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. With an infinitive: to have to, to be compelled to do something; must.^[11][1]
2. To be obliged by social norms or an inner duty: ich muss ihre Einladung annehmen “I have to accept her invitation”.^[11]
3. To be necessary as a consequence: der Brief muss heute noch abgeschickt werden “the letter has to be sent off today”.^[11]
4. (northern Germany) Negated: need not, should not: das musst du nicht tun “you shouldn't do that”.^[11]
5. Expresses a strong probability: so muss es gewesen sein “that is how it must have been”.^[11]
6. In the past subjunctive, expresses what is desirable: Geld müsste man haben “if only one had money”.^[11]
7. Without an infinitive: to have to go somewhere or do something: er hat gemusst “he had to”.^[11][1]
8. (colloquial, euphemistic) To need to go to the toilet.^[1][3]

Word family

• durchmüssen
• wegmüssen
• zurückmüssen

Related words

• Muße
• messen
• English must

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 e f Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 2748
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
4. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 642
5. ^ a b c d e Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de
6. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag
8. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 230
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
12. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
13. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling