sinken

Forms

sinken (class 3 strong, third-person singular present sinkt, past tense sank, past participle gesunken, past subjunctive sänke, auxiliary sein)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German sinken, inherited from Old High German sinkan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *sinkwan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *sinkwaną (“to sink”), a strong verb.^[2][1][3] The same verb is Gothic 𐍃𐌹𐌲𐌲𐌵𐌰𐌽 (sigqan), Old Norse søkkva, Old English sincan, Old Frisian sinka and Old Saxon sinkan, continued in Dutch zinken, English sink and Swedish sjunka.^[2][4] Its causative is senken.^[5]

There is no certain comparison outside Germanic.^[2][6] Kluge, Pfeifer and Duden consider Old Armenian անկանիմ (ankanim, “I fall”) and Ancient Greek ἑάφθη (heáphthē, “fell, sank”) in Homer, both ambiguous in form and uncertain in meaning, and Kluge adds Lithuanian sèkti (“to sink, fall, run dry”) as a possible variant.^[2][4][5] On this basis Pfeifer sets up a root Proto-Indo-European *sengʷ- (“to fall, sink”).^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German sinkan is recorded from the end of the 8th century in glosses, then in the Tatian and in Notker, meaning to sink or settle, for Latin mergere, sidere and submergere.^[3][7][8] A gloss uses it of a ship's crowd going down in the water.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German sinken meant to sink, go under and disappear, and in mining it was also used transitively, to drive a shaft downward.^[3][10] Early on the verb was used for tired bodies (vor slafe sunken si aber hin, 14th century), and Luther's Psalms let warriors' hands sink.^[11] Later it was used of falling leaves, of fire that sinks to embers, of mercury in a thermometer, and figuratively of cities sinking into the dust in Schiller.^[11] From the falling of levels comes the modern use for prices, values and numbers.^[6]

The prefixed versinken, Old High German firsinkan (about 900), was already used figuratively in Middle High German for becoming absorbed in something.^[4][5] The old plural preterite long survived in New High German and produced a singular sunk, which replaced sank in several dialects;^[12][13] Adelung (1798) still noted ich sunk in common speech.^[12][13]

Timeline

• Late 8th century – Old High German sinkan appears in glosses.^[7][3]
• c. 900 – First record of firsinkan “to go under”.^[4]
• c. 1200–1210 – Middle High German sinken in Wolfram's Parzival.^[14]
• 14th century – Used of sinking down from sleep.^[11]
• 1798 – Adelung records the colloquial preterite ich sunk.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sink, move slowly downward: Der Ballon sinkt langsam.^[6][1]
2. To come down to a place by sinking: Die Blätter sinken zu Boden.^[6]
3. Of a ship: to go to the bottom, founder: Das Frachtschiff sank in einem Sturm.^[6][1]
4. To sink into soft ground: im Schlamm sinken.^[6]
5. To fall or drop slowly from an upright position, to slump: Erschöpft sank sie auf das Sofa.^[6]
6. Of water levels: to go down, fall: Der Fluss ist um einen Meter gesunken.^[6]
7. Of prices, values, numbers: to fall, drop, decline: Die Temperaturen sinken unter null.^[6][1]

Word family

• versinken
• Senke

Related words

• sinkend
• Sinkflug
• senken
• sacken
• seicht
• English sink

Usage notes

Den Kopf sinken lassen and die Hände sinken lassen (“to let one's hands drop”, to give up) are old phrases: Adelung lists both.^[13][11]

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. 850
3. ^ 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. 7, 1255
4. ^ a b c d e 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 Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 784
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
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. 282
9. ^ Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch (1952–), founded by Elisabeth Karg-Gasterstädt and Theodor Frings, Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag / De Gruyter; online awb.saw-leipzig.de, p. 8, 688
10. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities
11. ^ 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
12. ^ 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, 1097
13. ^ a b c d Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
14. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling