machen

Forms

machen (third-person singular present macht, past tense machte, past participle gemacht, auxiliary haben)^[1] An old subjunctive past mechte (beside machte) is still found in the 16th and 17th centuries and in Thuringian dialect.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German machen, inherited from Old High German mahhōn, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *makōn, a weak verb found only in West Germanic.^[3][1][2] The same word is Old Saxon makon, Old English macian and Old Frisian makia, with Dutch maken and English make;^[3][2] Icelandic maka, Swedish maka and Danish mage were borrowed from it.^[3][2]

Kluge derives it from a root Proto-Indo-European *maǵ- (“to knead”), which has special craft uses in several languages, especially Greek: Ancient Greek μάσσω (mássō, “I knead, press, wipe, mould”).^[3][4] The general Germanic sense, in which building plays a large part, may go back to smearing house walls with clay;^[3][5][6] Paul and the Duden dictionary likewise take it as first a word of clay building, “to knead, shape, join”.^[3][5][6] Wiktionary instead derives the verb from an adjective Proto-West Germanic *mak (“fit, suitable”), which also lies behind gemach.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German mahhōn is recorded from the 8th century, first in glosses of about 765, then in Otfrid and Notker, meaning “make, do, create, produce, bring about, join, form”.^[3][8]

Semantic evolution

From “knead, shape, join” the verb came to mean “prepare, put in order”, and then became so general that it serves as the causative verb of German (“to bring about”).^[5] In this it competed with tun and partly drove it out of its earlier uses.^[5] From the idea of fitting together come gemach, first “fitting, comfortable”, with allmählich, and the noun Gemach.^[6]

Paul thinks Geld machen “to make money” was probably modelled on English to make money.^[5] The verb has many compounds and derivatives, among them vermachen “bequeath”, with Vermächtnis (16th century), and Machenschaft, which first meant “nature, quality” in the 18th century.^[6]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German mahhōn appears in glosses.^[3][8]
• 16th century – Vermächtnis “legacy” is recorded.^[6]
• 16th–17th centuries – The subjunctive mechte is still in use.^[2]
• 18th century – Machenschaft and Machwerk are recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make, produce, manufacture (Möbel machen); to prepare food or drink (Kaffee machen).^[9][1]
2. To cause, bring about (Lärm machen, jemandem Arbeit machen).^[9][1]
3. (informal) To do, carry out.^[1]
4. To make someone or something into something, or put it in a state.^[1]
5. (colloquial) To come to, amount to; in arithmetic, to make.^[1]
6. (colloquial) To earn (money, profit).^[1][5]
7. To play, act as (a role).^[1]
8. (colloquial) To matter (with nichts, viel).^[1]
9. (informal, euphemistic) To relieve oneself.^[1]
10. Reflexive: to do, fare; to look a certain way; to work out.^[1]

Word family

• Macher
• abmachen
• aufmachen
• ausmachen
• bekanntmachen
• einmachen
• fertigmachen
• vermachen
• wettmachen
• machbar
• anmachen
• durchmachen
• freimachen
• hermachen
• heruntermachen

Related words

• gemach
• allmählich
• Makler
• Steinmetz
• English make

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 1363
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 590
4. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 524
7. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag