setzen

Forms

setzen (third-person singular present setzt, past tense setzte, past participle gesetzt, auxiliary haben or sein)^[1] Old High German often formed the past without umlaut, sazta, which continued as Middle High German sazte.^[2] satzte remained usual in writing for a long time, as in Luther's Bible.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German setzen, inherited from Old High German sezzen, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *sattjan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *satjaną (“to set, place”), the causative of sitzen, so that it first meant “to make sit”.^[3][4][5] The same verb is Gothic 𐍃𐌰𐍄𐌾𐌰𐌽 (satjan), Old Saxon settian, Old Frisian setta, Old English settan and Old Norse setja, and today Dutch zetten, English set and Swedish sätta.^[3][4][5]

It continues Proto-Indo-European *sodéyeti (“to make sit”), with the o-grade of Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”).^[1][5][6] Causatives of the same root are found in Sanskrit सादयति (sādáyati, “makes sit down”), Old Church Slavonic садити (saditi, “to plant”), Russian садить (sadítʹ, “to set, plant”) and Lithuanian sodìnti (“to set, plant”).^[3][4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German sezzen is recorded from the 8th century, in the Abrogans and other glosses, and then in Isidor, the Benedictine Rule, Tatian, Otfrid and Notker.^[8][6] It meant “to set, put, lay”, “to install, consecrate”, “to plant”, and “to establish, determine”, and reflexively “to sit down”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German setzen also meant “to tell”, “to appoint, decide”, and reflexively “to settle”.^[4][10] The sense “to determine, decree”, from setting down law, was current from the 14th to the 18th century, and lives on in festsetzen, in Gesetz and in Satzung.^[7] The reflexive sich setzen increasingly took the place of reflexive sitzen, and phrases such as sich zur Wehr setzen go back to Middle High German.^[11]

Setzer has meant a typesetter since the 16th century.^[7][4] übersetzen “to translate” appears in the 17th century, probably after Latin trādūcō or transferō, and umsetzen in the commercial sense was taken over from Low German in the same century.^[12] The participle gesetzt “staid, sedate” comes from the 18th century.^[4]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German sezzen appears in the Abrogans.^[8][3]
• 10th century – sezzāri “founder, author” is recorded.^[4]
• 14th–18th century – setzen is used for “to decree, determine”.^[7]
• 16th century – Setzer means a typesetter.^[7][4]
• 17th century – übersetzen “to translate” appears, and umsetzen is used in trade.^[12]
• 18th century – gesetzt “staid” appears.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (reflexive) To sit down; of a bird, to settle: Setz dich zu uns!^[13][1]
2. To put or place someone or something somewhere: das Kind auf die Bank setzen.^[13][1]
3. To plant: Tomaten setzen.^[13][14]
4. To write somewhere: seinen Namen unter den Brief setzen.^[13]
5. (printing) To typeset.^[13][14]
6. To stake, bet: auf ein Pferd setzen.^[13][1]
7. To fix, lay down: a deadline, a goal.^[13]
8. (intransitive, with sein) To leap over something; to cross a river: über den Zaun setzen.^[13][1]
9. (reflexive) Of particles, to settle, sink; to get into something.^[13][1]
10. (hunting) Of game, to give birth.^[13][14]

Word family

• Satz
• Setzer
• Setzling
• Setzung
• Gesetz
• gesetzt
• absetzen
• aufsetzen
• besetzen
• ersetzen
• entsetzen
• festsetzen
• fortsetzen
• übersetzen
• umsetzen
• versetzen
• Umsatz

Related words

• sitzen
• Set

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 16, 643
3. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 846
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
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. 7, 1157
9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 278
10. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 894
11. ^ Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
12. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 778
13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
14. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org