Etymologically
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stimmen

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈʃtɪmən/, [ˈʃtimɛn], [ˈʃtɪmn̩][1]

Forms

stimmen (third-person singular present stimmt, past tense stimmte, past participle gestimmt, auxiliary haben)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German stimmen, formed from Stimme “voice”.[2][3][1] Kluge and the Grimms' dictionary see in it a merger.[2][4] On the one hand there is the verb made from the noun itself, “to make one's voice heard, to call”, which lives on in anstimmen and bestimmen; on the other there is Old High German gistimnen (“to sing together, strike up”), made from the adjective gistimmi (“harmonious, having the same voice”), which gave “to be in tune, agree” and the tuning of instruments.[2][4] The sense “to vote” is recent, a loan translation of votieren, since the noun rendered Latin vōtum (“vow, vote”).[2]

The noun is Old High German stimna, stimma, Proto-Germanic *stemnō (“voice”), the same word as Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐌹𐌱𐌽𐌰 (stibna), Old English stefn, Old Frisian stifne and Old Saxon stemna.[2][3] Kluge thinks it most likely an extension of a word for “mouth”, as in Ancient Greek στόμα (stóma) and Avestan staman- (“muzzle”), and Pfeifer finds the link possible,[2][3] while Duden and Orel call its origin unknown.[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German gistimnen “to strike up, sing together” is recorded in glosses of the first quarter of the 9th century;[7][3] Pfeifer dates it to the 8th.[7][3] Middle High German stimmen meant “to make one's voice heard, to call”, “to give a voice to”, “to make sound alike”, “to name” and “to fix, assess”, as in ein zît gestimmet “a time fixed”.[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Pfeifer dates the musical sense “to tune” to the 16th century, “to vote for someone or something” to the 17th and “to put someone in a certain mood” to the 18th;[3] Duden places the voting sense in the 16th century, as it does the intransitive “to agree, be right”, and notes that “to put in a mood” was transferred from instruments to the human mind.[5] anstimmen and zustimmen date from the 16th century, abstimmen and beistimmen from the 17th, and übereinstimmen from the 16th.[3] Stimmung was first said of instruments (16th century) and, from the 18th of a state of mind.[5][3]

Danish stemme and Swedish stämma were taken from German,[4] and the verb was borrowed into Hungarian as stimmel (1817) “to tune an instrument” and into the Polish of Cieszyn as sztymować (1935).[10]

Timeline

  • First quarter of the 9th century – Old High German gistimnen in glosses.[7]
  • Middle High German – stimmen “to call; to name; to fix”.[8]
  • 16th century – “to tune” an instrument;[3] anstimmen, zustimmen.[3]
  • 16th–17th century – “to vote”.[5][3]
  • 18th century – “to put in a mood”;[3][5] Stimmung “state of mind”.[3][5]
  • 1817 – Hungarian stimmel.[10]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To be true or correct: Die Zahlen stimmen. Stimmt! “That's right!”[11][1]
  2. To be in order, give no cause for complaint: Die Abrechnung stimmt. Stimmt so! “Keep the change!”[11]
  3. (less common) To fit, match: Die Beschreibung stimmt auf den Verdächtigen.[11]
  4. To put someone in a certain mood: Der Brief stimmte sie nachdenklich.[11][1]
  5. (music) To tune an instrument: eine Gitarre stimmen.[11][1]
  6. To vote: für den Antrag stimmen.[11][1]

Word family

  • abstimmen
  • anstimmen
  • beistimmen
  • bestimmen
  • einstimmen
  • übereinstimmen
  • überstimmen
  • umstimmen
  • verstimmen
  • zustimmen
  • zusammenstimmen
  • stimmig
  • Stimmung

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 886
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 18, 3088
  5. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  6. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ a b Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 2, 1199
  9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  11. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag