schreiben

Forms

schreiben (class 1 strong, third-person singular present schreibt, past tense schrieb, past participle geschrieben, auxiliary haben)^[1] The verbal noun Schreiben “letter, official communication” is recorded from the 16th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German schrīben, inherited from Old High German scrīban, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *skrīban, borrowed from Latin scrībō (“to write”).^[4][2][1] The Latin verb first meant “to scratch, incise”, as with a stylus, and belongs to the family of scheren “to cut”.^[4][5] The same borrowing is found in Old Saxon skrīƀan, Old English scrīfan (“to decree, impose a penance”) and Old Frisian skrīva, and today in Dutch schrijven and Swedish skriva, while Old Norse skrifa was taken from West Germanic.^[4][2][6] Old English developed the sense of hearing confession, which survives in English shrive.^[2]

The verb is strong in all the West Germanic languages, which is unusual for a loan.^[4] Kluge therefore does not rule out a native Germanic verb that was later reshaped after the Latin one,^[4] and the Duden takes the same view.^[5] Pfeifer and the Grimms' dictionary think it was borrowed twice: first in the sense “to order, determine”, kept by the Old English verb, and later, with Roman writing, in the sense “to write letters”.^[2][6] The Grimms connect the early loan with the enlisting of Germanic men in the Roman army.^[6] In English the native wrītan, which first meant “to scratch runes”, was applied to the new art instead, giving write; it is related to reißen.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German scrīban is first recorded in glosses of the later 8th century, and then in Isidor, the Tatian, Otfrid, Notker and Williram, meaning “to write, write down, describe”.^[7][8] The agent noun skrībāri “scribe” is also recorded in the 8th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German schrīben meant “to write down, record”, but also “to describe, depict, paint” and “to decree, order”.^[2][9] The Middle High German Tristan already pairs it with reading, si kunde schrîben unde lesen (“she could write and read”).^[10] The Schreiber was a high official such as a chancellor or notary in the Middle Ages, and later a lower clerk.^[5]

The noun Schreiben “letter” dates from the 16th century, and Adelung around 1800 considered it more formal than Brief.^[2][11] The colloquial Schrieb “piece of writing”, formed with a vowel change like other verbal nouns, appears around 1900.^[2] Many prefixed verbs took on special senses: anschreiben “to note a debt” in the 15th century, hence gut angeschrieben sein “to be in someone's good books” in the 17th;^[2][5] einschreiben was used by the post office from 1875 in place of rekommandieren.^[2][5] The emphatic phrase sage und schreibe and etwas wird großgeschrieben “something is given great importance” belong to modern usage.^[10] Polish borrowed the verb as szrajbować “to write excitedly”, recorded in 1844.^[12]

Timeline

• Later 8th century – Old High German scrīban appears in glosses.^[7]
• 8th century – skrībāri “scribe” is recorded.^[2]
• 11th century – furiscrīban “to write at the beginning” is recorded.^[2]
• 1060–1065 – Middle High German schrīben is used by Williram.^[9]
• 15th century – anschreiben is used for noting a debt.^[2]
• 16th century – The noun Schreiben “letter” appears.^[2]
• 17th century – Anschrift “address” is used by Zesen.^[2]
• 1844 – Polish szrajbować is recorded.^[12]
• 1875 – einschreiben becomes the postal term for registering a letter.^[2]
• Around 1900 – Colloquial Schrieb appears.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To write, to form letters, figures or notes on a surface: mit dem Kugelschreiber schreiben.^[13][1]
2. (of a pen) To write in a particular way: der Füller schreibt gut.^[13]
3. To put together a word or number in letters or figures; to spell: einen Namen mit zwei n schreiben.^[13][1]
4. To compose a text: eine Bewerbung schreiben.^[13][1]
5. To compose music.^[13][10]
6. To work as an author or journalist.^[13][1]
7. To send a written message to someone; reflexive, to correspond: sie schreibt ihrer Tante jede Woche.^[13][1]
8. (reflexive, colloquial) To be spelled: Wie schreibt sich dein Nachname?^[13][1]
9. (dated) To have as the date: man schrieb das Jahr 1815.^[13][1]
10. To enter a sum in an account: einen Betrag auf ein Konto schreiben.^[13][14]
11. To certify a state of health in writing, as in krankschreiben.^[13][10]

Word family

• Schreiber
• Schreiben
• Schrieb
• Schrift
• abschreiben
• Abschrift
• anschreiben
• Anschrift
• aufschreiben
• ausschreiben
• beschreiben
• Beschreibung
• einschreiben
• Einschreiben
• krankschreiben
• unterschreiben
• verschreiben
• vorschreiben
• Vorschrift
• zuschreiben

Related words

• Manuskript
• subskribieren
• Latin scrībō
• English shrive

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
3. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag
4. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 827
5. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 758
6. ^ 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. 15, 1689
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 293
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b c d Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
11. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
12. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
14. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org