Etymologically
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reichen

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈʁaɪ̯çn̩/, /ˈʁaɪ̯çən/[1]

Forms

reichen (third-person singular present reicht, past tense reichte, past participle gereicht, auxiliary haben)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German reichen, inherited from Old High German reihhen (“to extend, reach”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *raikijan (“to reach”).[2][1] A by-form Old High German reihhōn (“to offer”) is recorded beside it.[2][3] The same verb is Middle Low German rēken, Middle Dutch reiken, Old Frisian rēka and Old English rǣcan, continued in Dutch reiken and English reach;[2][3] no corresponding verb is found in Gothic, Old Norse or Old Saxon.[4]

Pfeifer and Duden connect it with Lithuanian réižti (“to stretch, straighten (the limbs)”) and Old Irish riag (“torture”), originally the stretching of the limbs, and Pfeifer sets up a root Proto-Indo-European *rēiǵ- (“to stretch out, reach with the outstretched hand”), close in sound and sense to the root of recht.[3][5] Wiktionary derives the verb from a causative of Proto-Indo-European *Hreyǵ- (“to stretch out, reach”).[1] Kluge stresses that, with no closely related forms, the shape and sounds of the family are hard to judge: it might start from Proto-Indo-European *reǵ- (“to direct, guide”), which also has the senses “stretch” and “reach”, or from a variant of it, and he advises caution, since the answer bears on whether Reich and reich are borrowings.[2] Paul thinks the verb may be related to them by ablaut.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German reihhen is first recorded in glosses of the last quarter of the 8th century, among them a Bavarian manuscript of about 800, and then in Notker, with the senses “to extend far, refer to, aim at, fetch, reach for”.[7][8][9] In Old High German the verb is only intransitive.[4]

Semantic evolution

Duden describes the first sense as “to extend”, from which came “to reach out, to manage” and “to suffice”, and in transitive use “to stretch out, hold out, offer, give”.[5] Middle High German reichen also meant to reach, obtain, fetch and hand over.[10][11] Paul traces how the spatial sense was carried over to time and to the mind, and how reichen an came to mean “to equal”; asking whether something reaches far enough gave the general sense “to be enough”, for which ausreichen and hinreichen are now often preferred.[6]

The phrase jemandem nicht das Wasser reichen können “to be no match for someone” dates from the 16th century and probably goes back to the custom of a servant handing guests water to wash their hands before and after a meal.[3] The noun Bereich (late 18th century) was formed from the obsolete verb bereichen “to reach, extend over”, and the prefixed verbs erreichen and gereichen go back to Old High German.[3][5]

Timeline

  • Late 8th century – Old High German reihhen appears in glosses.[7][8]
  • c. 800 – The prefixed verb gireihhen “to extend, reach” is recorded.[3]
  • 10th century – reihhōn “to offer, refer to” is recorded.[3]
  • c. 1000 – Notker uses reihhen for “to extend”.[3][9]
  • 16th century – First record of jemandem nicht das Wasser reichen können.[3]
  • Second half of the 17th century – ausreichen and einreichen appear.[5]
  • Late 18th century – The noun Bereich appears.[3]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (often formal) To hand or pass something to someone, to hold it out for them to take: Sie reichte ihm die Zeitung über den Tisch.[12][1]
  2. To serve food or drink to guests: Zum Fisch reicht man Salzkartoffeln.[12]
  3. To be enough, to suffice for a purpose or a time: Der Vorrat reicht noch bis Freitag. Es reicht mir (colloquial) means “I have had enough”.[12][1]
  4. (with mit) To manage with a supply until a certain time: Mit dem Benzin reichen wir noch bis zur Grenze.[12]
  5. To extend or reach as far as a certain point: Der Wald reicht bis an die Straße.[12][1]

Word family

Usage notes

Early New High German also had a verb reichen “to make rich, to become rich”, formed from the adjective reich; it was already obsolete by the 18th century, surviving only in Swiss dialect.[13][14]

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. 755
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 14, 584
  5. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
  6. ^ a b 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 Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 7, 333
  9. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 257
  10. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 384
  11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  12. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  13. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 14, 591
  14. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de