Etymologically
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oben

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈʔoːbən/, [ˈoːbm̩][1]

Forms

oben (adverb)[1] Old High German had obana, opana and obena, Middle High German obene, obine and oben.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German oben, inherited from Old High German obana (“from above; above”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *obanā, inherited from Proto-Germanic *ubanē (“from above”).[4][1][3] The same word is Old Saxon oƀana, Old Norse ofan, Old English ufan and Old Frisian ova.[4][5][6] Old Saxon, Middle Low German, Dutch, Old Frisian and Old English mostly used forms with the prefix of be- instead, such as Middle Low German bōven, Dutch boven and the Old English bufan.[5][3]

It is an adverb formed with the suffix Proto-Germanic *-anē from the local particle continued in ob “above”, Proto-Germanic *ub.[5][1][6] Like außen, hinten, innen and unten it first gave the direction from which something comes, “from above”, and then the place.[5][7][8] The particle goes back to Proto-Indo-European *upo (“towards, up to”), which is also found in Sanskrit उप (úpa, “towards, near”);[4][9] Kluge compares Latin superus (“upper”), though the origin of its /s/ is unclear.[4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German obana is recorded from the 8th century, first in the Abrogans glossary, then in other glosses, the Tatian and Otfrid.[3][4] It meant “above” and “from above”, as in obana fona himile “from above, from heaven”, and already “above in the text, before”.[3][10]

Semantic evolution

Paul takes the original sense to be “from above”; by Middle High German at the latest it meant “at a higher place”.[7] In a text oben means “earlier”, properly “higher up on the roll” of papyrus or parchment, then “higher on the page”, and it was then applied to sequences in time.[7] It is also used of social hierarchies, of orders that come from above, as in Kurt Tucholsky's remark of 1926 that the police were seldom corrected von oben.[7][11]

With dar it formed droben (1331), frequent in Luther's Bible, also for “in heaven”.[7] Later combinations are obenan (Luther), obenhin “superficially” (1349) and obendrein “moreover” (about 1740–70), a loan formation after Latin insuper.[7] Colloquially oben also means “up north”, after the orientation of a map on the wall.[8]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German obana is recorded in the Abrogans glossary.[3]
  • 1331 – The contracted form droben is recorded.[7]
  • 1349 – obenhin “superficially” is recorded.[7]
  • c. 1740–1770 – obendrein “moreover” is formed after Latin insuper.[7]
  • 1926 – Tucholsky uses von oben of the higher authorities.[7]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. above, up; at a higher place, at the top or on the upper side: Die Teller stehen oben im Regal.[8][1]
  2. upstairs, on a higher floor: Die Kinder schlafen schon oben.[8][1]
  3. (colloquial) In the north: Sie wohnt jetzt oben in Kiel.[8][1]
  4. Earlier in a text, above: wie oben erwähnt.[1][12][7]
  5. At a higher level of a hierarchy: Die Anweisung kam von oben.[12][7]

Word family

  • droben
  • obenan
  • obendrein
  • obenhin

Usage notes

Von oben herab means in a condescending manner, von oben bis unten “from top to bottom, completely”, and nicht mehr wissen, wo oben und unten ist is to be utterly confused.[8] The jocular oben ohne means topless.[8]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 13, 1065
  3. ^ a b c d e f Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 6, 1098
  4. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 663
  5. ^ a b c d Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  6. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 243
  11. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
  12. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org