nehmen

Forms

nehmen (class 4 strong, third-person singular present nimmt, past tense nahm, past participle genommen, past subjunctive nähme, auxiliary haben)^[1] The Middle High German infinitive nemen lasted until the end of the 17th century.^[2] From the 14th century, Alemannic texts wrote nemmen to mark the short vowel, while from the 16th century the lengthened vowel was marked with h, giving nehmen.^[2] The forms nimmst, nimmt, nimm and genommen kept the short vowel.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German nemen, inherited from Old High German neman, inherited from Proto-Germanic *nemaną (“to take”), a strong verb.^[3][4][1] The same word is Gothic 𐌽𐌹𐌼𐌰𐌽 (niman), Old Saxon niman, Old Norse nema, Old English niman and Old Frisian nima, and today Dutch nemen and the dated English nim.^[3][4][1]

Pfeifer and the Duden trace it to the root Proto-Indo-European *nem- (“to allot”), in the middle voice “to allot to oneself, take”, which is also behind Ancient Greek νέμω (némō, “to distribute, allot; to possess”), Avestan nəmah- (“loan”) and Latin numerus (“number”).^[4][5] Kluge is more cautious: the Greek and Avestan words match the sounds exactly but mean “give, allot”, and how they connect with the Germanic verb is unclear.^[3] He also mentions a family meaning “take, buy”, with emō (“to take, buy”) and Lithuanian im̃ti (“to take”), which could at most be a rhyming variant.^[3] Paul considers the relationship with the Greek, Latin and Latvian words unexplained.^[6] Kroonen follows a proposal that derives the verb from *h₁em- (“to take, distribute”), with the initial /n/ taken over from the prefix Proto-Germanic *ga-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German neman is first recorded in glosses of about 765, and then throughout the Old High German texts, among them Isidor, Tatian, Otfrid and Notker.^[7][8] It meant “to take, seize, grasp”, “to take away, remove, rob” and “to receive, accept”.^[9][8] Phrases such as gouma neman “to pay attention, observe” were already common.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Paul takes “to grasp” as the original sense: Middle High German could ask wa namet ir daz? for “where did you get that?”.^[6] The verb is often set against geben, as in Luther's rendering of Acts, Geben ist seliger den nemen (“it is more blessed to give than to receive”), and so it was often coloured by the idea of greed.^[6] The sense “to use” (of an ingredient) gave the recipe formula man nehme.^[6]

The old abstract noun Old High German nāma (“seizure”) survives only in compounds such as Abnahme, Annahme and Aufnahme.^[4][5] Reflexive benehmen “to behave” is recorded from the 18th century, and benommen “dazed” originally meant “taken away, hindered”.^[4][5] Unternehmer (late 17th century) was modelled on French entrepreneur and English undertaker.^[4][5] Vernunft “reason” is formed from vernehmen “to perceive”.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 765 – Old High German neman appears in glosses.^[7]
• 1331 – The Alemannic spelling nemmen appears in a Freiburg document.^[2]
• 16th century – The spelling nehmen with h comes into use.^[2]
• Early 17th century – Unternehmen “undertaking” is recorded.^[4]
• End of the 17th century – The old infinitive nemen goes out of use.^[2]
• 18th century – Reflexive sich benehmen “to behave” comes into use.^[4][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take hold of with the hand, grasp: Sie nahm ihre Tasche und ging.^[10][1]
2. To take into one's possession; in chess, to capture a piece.^[10]
3. To accept something offered: Er nimmt kein Trinkgeld.^[10][1]
4. To take away, deprive someone of something: Der Baum nimmt uns die Aussicht.^[10][1]
5. To use for a purpose: Für den Kuchen nehme ich Butter.^[10]
6. To put somewhere, or to take out of or off something: das Kind auf den Arm nehmen, die Teller aus dem Schrank nehmen.^[10]
7. To make use of a service or means of transport: ein Taxi nehmen, sich einen Anwalt nehmen.^[10]
8. To take medicine, to ingest: Tabletten nehmen.^[1]
9. To take something in a certain way: etwas ernst nehmen.^[1]
10. (sports) To foul a player.^[1]

Word family

• annehmen
• Annahme
• abnehmen
• Abnahme
• aufnehmen
• Aufnahme
• Entnahme
• benehmen
• Benehmen
• benommen
• genehm
• unternehmen
• Unternehmer
• vernehmen
• Vernunft
• vornehm
• teilnehmen
• wahrnehmen

Related words

• Nomade
• Nummer
• English nim

Usage notes

Hart im Nehmen sein is to be able to take hard knocks.^[6] The saying Woher nehmen und nicht stehlen? (“where to get it without stealing?”) is used when something is impossible to come by,^[10] and colloquially a grasping person is said to be vom Stamme Nimm “of the tribe of Take”, after the imperative.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. 13, 521
3. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 651
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ a b c Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 6, 875
9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 235
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag