offen

Forms

offen (strong nominative masculine singular offener, comparative offener, superlative am offensten)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German offen, inherited from Old High German offan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *opan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *upanaz (“open”).^[2][3][1] The same adjective is Old Saxon opan, Old Norse opinn, Old English open and Old Frisian epen, and today Dutch open, English open and Swedish öppen.^[2][3][4] There is no record of it in Gothic.^[5]

Kluge explains it as formed with an n-suffix and ablaut from the same base as auf, and more distantly related to oben and ober.^[2][6] Pfeifer suggests that it first meant “drawn or lifted up”, hence “open”,^[3] and the Grimms' dictionary takes the Germanic form for the participle of a lost strong verb.^[5] Wiktionary also explains it as such a participle, of a verb formed from Proto-Germanic *upp (“up”) and meaning “lying on top”, but notes that no other trace of that verb exists.^[1] Köbler traces the base to Proto-Indo-European *upo (“below, up, over”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German offan is recorded from the second half of the 8th century, first in the Abrogans glossary and many other glosses, then in the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and Williram, meaning “open, opened”, and also “evident, clear, bright” and “public”.^[4][7][8] Otfrid speaks of seeing Christ offenên ougun “with open eyes”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German offen meant “opened, spread out, wide” and also “evident, unconcealed, public”.^[3][4] The senses “plain to everyone” and “public” later passed to the derivatives offenbar and öffentlich.^[9] The adjective was transferred to what is not occupied (eine offene Stelle), to what is not yet decided, to people receptive to impressions, and to frank and sincere people, from which came Offenheit (Wieland, 1773).^[9][3] Since Karl Popper's Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde (German translation 1957–58) it has also described political systems that are open to change.^[9]

The adjective öffentlich goes back to Old High German offanlīh (9th century), gained an inserted /t/ in the 13th century and its umlaut from the 15th, and was later used in the sense of Latin publicus, as in die öffentliche Meinung (late 18th century, after French opinion publique).^[3][9] Öffentlichkeitsarbeit (second half of the 20th century) translates English public relations.^[6][10]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German offan appears in glosses, among them the Abrogans.^[2][7][4]
• 8th century – The verb offanōn, the ancestor of öffnen, is first recorded.^[3]
• 9th century – offanlīh, the ancestor of öffentlich, is recorded.^[3]
• 10th century – offanbāri, the ancestor of offenbar, is recorded.^[3]
• 1641 – offenherzig is recorded in Schottelius.^[9]
• 1773 – Wieland uses Offenheit.^[9]
• 1800 – Offenbarungseid, the oath of disclosure of a debtor, is recorded.^[9]
• 1957–58 – Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies appears in German as Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Open, not closed, so that someone or something can get in or out: Das Garagentor stand die ganze Nacht offen.^[11][1]
2. Not locked or sealed, and of a shop or office: open for business: Die Apotheke hat heute bis zehn Uhr offen.^[11]
3. Uncovered, not covered over.^[11]
4. Not blocked by any obstacle, freely accessible.^[11]
5. Of a competition: not restricted to particular participants.^[11]
6. Of wine and other drinks: served from the barrel or by the glass, not in a bottle, and (regional) of goods: sold loose, not packed.^[11]
7. Not yet decided, uncertain: Ob das Konzert im Freien stattfindet, ist noch offen.^[11][12]
8. Not yet paid or settled, and of a post: vacant.^[11]
9. Frank, candid, hiding nothing about one's feelings: Sie hat ihm offen gesagt, was sie denkt.^[11][1]
10. Plain for everyone to see, unconcealed, and done in public, not secret.^[11]
11. (sports) Neglecting defence and so leaving the opponent room for a counter-attack.^[11]
12. (phonetics) Of a vowel: pronounced with the mouth wide open, and of a syllable: ending in a vowel.^[11][12]

Adverb

1. Openly, frankly.^[1][13]

Word family

• öffnen
• Öffnung
• offenbar
• offenbaren
• Offenbarung
• Offenheit
• offenherzig
• öffentlich
• Öffentlichkeit
• veröffentlichen

Related words

• auf
• oben
• English open

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 666
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 6, 1131
5. ^ 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. 13, 1163
6. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 593
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 244
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
13. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 13, 1171