Etymologically
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treffen

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈtʁɛfən/, [ˈtʰʁ̥ɛfɱ̩][1]

Forms

treffen (class 4 strong, third-person singular present trifft, past tense traf, past participle getroffen, past subjunctive träfe, auxiliary haben)[1] Older German often had the past plural troffen and the participle troffen without ge-.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German treffen, inherited from Old High German treffan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *drepan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *drepaną (“to strike”).[3][4][1] The same verb is Old Saxon -drepan, Old Norse drepa (“to strike, kill”) and Old English drepan (“to strike, kill”), and in the later languages Middle Low German drēpen and Swedish dräpa (“to slay”);[3][4][5] Dutch treffen was taken from High German.[3][4][5] The original sense was “to strike”.[3][6]

Its further origin is unclear: Kluge finds no usable comparison outside Germanic, and Pfeifer no certain one.[3][4] The Duden and Wahrig connect it with Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌳𐍂𐌰𐌱𐌰𐌽 (gadraban, “to hew out”) and perhaps with the Slavic family of Russian дробить (drobitʹ, “to crush”).[7][8] Since a Germanic /p/ would point to a doubtful Indo-European /b/, Kroonen, as summarised by Wiktionary, takes the verb as a back-formation from an iterative Proto-Germanic *drappōną of Proto-Germanic *drabaną (“to hew”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰrebʰ- (“to grind, crush”), which is otherwise found only in Lithuanian drė̃bti (“to strike”) and Proto-Slavic *drobìti (“to crush”).[1] The Grimms' dictionary, on the contrary, separates the root of treffen from that of the Gothic verb.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German treffan is first recorded in glosses, perhaps after 765, and then in Otfrid, Notker and Williram, meaning “to hit, aim at”, “to refer to, concern” and “to arrive”.[9][10] In the glosses it renders Latin percutere “to strike”, as in percussit traf.[2]

Semantic evolution

Paul describes the first sense as contact resulting from a blow, thrust, throw or shot, with a person as the subject, then a weapon, lightning or a glance.[11] Weakened, it came to mean “to come together with someone, by chance or on purpose”, and then “to reach the goal of an effort”, as in hitting the right tone or a painter catching a likeness.[11] Middle High German also had “to meet the enemy, fight”, which explains why the noun Treffen meant “battle” from the 15th century, a unit in battle order in the 18th, and a planned meeting only from the first half of the 20th century.[3][4][7]

Treffer (end of the 16th century) was a hit with a shot or throw, from the mid-18th century also a winning lottery ticket.[4] trefflich continues Middle High German treffelich.[4] betreffen (16th century) first meant “to catch in the act”, and its participle betroffen “dismayed” appears in the 18th century.[4][7] Pfeifer dates Treffpunkt to the end of the 19th century, the Duden to the 18th.[4][7] The verb was borrowed into Swedish träffa, Danish træffe, Polish trafić and Czech trefit, and Hungarian treffel is recorded in 1835.[2][1][12]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German treffan appears in glosses.[9][3]
  • c. 900 – ubartreffan “to surpass” is recorded.[4]
  • 15th century – The noun Treffen “battle” appears.[3][4]
  • 16th century – betreffen, eintreffen and zutreffen appear.[4]
  • End of the 16th century – Treffer is recorded.[4]
  • Mid-18th century – Treffer is used for a winning lottery ticket.[4]
  • First half of the 20th century – Treffen comes to mean “meeting”.[4][7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (of a shot, blow, throw) To hit, strike: Der Ball traf ihn am Knie.[6][1]
  2. To hit a target: Er trifft nie das Tor.;[6][11] ins Schwarze treffen, to hit the bull's eye.[6][11]
  3. To meet someone by chance: Ich habe gestern deine Schwester getroffen.[6][1]
  4. (also reflexive) To meet by arrangement: Wir treffen uns morgen am Bahnhof.[6][1]
  5. (with auf, auxiliary sein) To come upon, encounter: auf Schwierigkeiten treffen.[6]
  6. To affect, hurt someone emotionally: Seine Worte haben sie getroffen.[1][13]
  7. To capture correctly: den richtigen Ton treffen.[11][13]
  8. (with certain nouns) To make, carry out: eine Entscheidung treffen.[1][13]
  9. (colloquial) In es gut treffen: to be lucky.[1]

Word family

  • betreffen
  • eintreffen
  • Treffen
  • Treffer
  • trefflich
  • Treffpunkt
  • triftig
  • übertreffen
  • zutreffen
  • antreffen
  • treffsicher
  • zusammentreffen
  • vortrefflich
  • betroffen

Usage notes

Den Nagel auf den Kopf treffen, “to hit the nail on the head”, is to say exactly the right thing.[11][1] Etwas ins Treffen führen, “to lead something into battle”, means to bring something forward as an argument; it preserves the old military sense of the noun.[6][4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 21, 1586
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 927
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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 Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  7. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 870
  8. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 335
  11. ^ a b c d e f Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  12. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  13. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org