stehen

Forms

stehen (irregular strong, third-person singular present steht, past tense stand, past participle gestanden, past subjunctive stände or stünde, auxiliary haben or sein)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German stān, inherited from Old High German stān, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *stān, inherited from Proto-Germanic *stāną (“to stand”), with the by-forms stēn and stēn.^[2][3][1] The same verb is Old Saxon stān, Old Frisian stān and Dutch staan.^[2][4] The present forms with /ē/ were probably influenced by gēn beside gān (see gehen);^[3][5] Kluge allows either this or an old present in /j/.^[2] The Germanic /ā/ itself, where /ō/ would be expected, is unexplained for Kluge, while Pfeifer explains it too by early adaptation to the verb for “go”.^[2][3] Kroonen discusses a root present or an i-present as the source, and finds neither free of difficulties.^[4] The ⟨h⟩ was put into the spelling on the model of sehen, and the spelling with ⟨h⟩ appears first in Central German in the 14th century.^[3][1]

Beside this verb Germanic had a stem *stand-, seen in stantan, standan, Old English standan, Old Norse standa and Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌰𐌽 (standan); it partly replaced the simple verb and partly completed it.^[2][3] Its nasal at first belonged only to the present, as the past forms of English stood and Gothic show.^[3] The German past tense and participle ⟨stand⟩, ⟨gestanden⟩ come from this stem, as do Stand and, with secondary ablaut, Stunde.^[3][5] Old High German had the past stuont; the /a/ of the modern past came in by analogy with verbs such as binden.^[1][6]

The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- (“to stand, place”), found in the reduplicated presents Latin sistō (“to set up, stop”) and Ancient Greek ἵστημι (hístēmi, “to set up”), in stō (“to stand”), Lithuanian stóti (“to step, take one's stand”) and Russian стоять (stojátʹ, “to stand”).^[2][3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German stān, stēn is recorded from the 8th century, perhaps first in glosses of about 765.^[3][8] In the Benedictine Rule, the Muspilli, Otfrid, Tatian and Notker it means “to stand, be located, stay, stand still, exist”, and also “to rise again” and “to begin”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Until the 19th century stehen could also mean entering the state, “to take one's stand, step”, as it still does in southern German, with the perfect formed with sein;^[6] Luther writes stehe auf deine Füße “stand on your feet”, and Schiller sagt, wo ich hinstehn soll “say where I should stand”.^[6] It now means to remain upright on one's feet, in contrast to gehen and sitzen.^[6] Phrases include zu jemandem stehen “to stand by someone”, für etwas stehen “to vouch for, represent”, Wache stehen “to stand guard” and seinen Mann stehen “to hold one's own”.^[6]

Luther also used the form stahn.^[6] The past stund gave way to stand and has been archaic since the end of the 18th century; the subjunctive stünde remained general until the late 19th century, and stände, used consistently first by Wieland, prevails only in the 20th century.^[6]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German stān, stēn is first recorded.^[3][2]
• 14th century – The spelling stehen appears in Central German.^[3]
• 16th century – Luther uses the form stahn.^[6]
• 18th century – Wieland is the first to use the subjunctive stände throughout.^[6]
• Late 18th century – The past stund becomes archaic.^[6]
• 20th century – stände prevails over stünde.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stand: to be upright on one's feet.^[10][1]
2. To stand, be: to be in a place, usually upright.^[10][1]
3. (Switzerland) To take one's place, step.^[10]
4. To be written (in a book, on a sign).^[1]
5. To stand still, have stopped.^[1]
6. To be (in a certain state or position).^[1]
7. (with dative) To suit (of clothes or colours).^[1]
8. für etwas stehen: to represent, stand for.^[1][6]
9. zu jemandem stehen: to support, stand by someone.^[1][6]
10. (colloquial) auf jemanden stehen: to fancy someone.^[1]
11. (impersonal) Used for the current score in a game.^[1]

Word family

• abstehen
• aufstehen
• auferstehen
• ausstehen
• beistehen
• bestehen
• einstehen
• entstehen
• erstehen
• gestehen
• unterstehen
• verstehen
• vorstehen
• widerstehen
• zustehen
• gestanden

Related words

• Stand
• Stunde
• Stadt
• Statt
• Stuhl
• stet
• Gestade

Usage notes

In southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland the perfect is formed with sein (ich bin gestanden), elsewhere with haben.^[10] Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders (“here I stand, I can do no other”) is attributed to Luther at the Diet of Worms in 1521.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 880
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
7. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 17, 1396
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 309
10. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag