tun

Forms

tun (irregular, third-person singular present tut, past tense tat, past participle getan, past subjunctive täte, auxiliary haben)^[1] The Middle High German past singular was tete, whence Early New High German and archaising tet, tät.^[2] The spelling thun was usual until the 20th century; the Grimms' dictionary still enters the verb under it.^[3][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German tuon, inherited from Old High German tuon, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *dōn, a verb found only in West Germanic: Old Saxon dōn, Old English dōn and Old Frisian duā, and today Dutch doen and English do.^[4][5][1] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Germanic *dōną; in North and East Germanic the verb itself is not recorded, but its derivatives Old Norse dáð (“deed”) and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌳𐌴𐌸𐍃 (gadēþs, “deed”) show that it existed there.^[1][5] Kluge thinks that the past tense forms of the weak verbs were partly formed with this verb, so that the reduplicated plural forms of the Gothic weak past tense tell something about its old forms.^[4]

It goes back to the root Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put, set, place”), probably in a form with a different vowel grade, and is related to Hittite dai- (“to put, place”), Sanskrit दधाति (dádhāti, “puts, places”), Ancient Greek τίθημι (títhēmi, “I put, I do”), Latin condō (“to found”) and, extended with /k/, faciō (“to do, make”), Lithuanian dėti (“to put”) and Old Church Slavonic дѣти (děti, “to put, place”).^[4][5][6] Wiktionary explains the Germanic present from an aorist form Proto-Indo-European *dʰéh₁t, whose o-grade is unexpected.^[1] Also from this root are Tat and -tum, and, through Greek, Thema, These and Theke.^[6][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German tuon is recorded from the 8th century and is one of the most frequent verbs of the language, meaning “to do, make, act, work, bring about, create, perform, carry out”.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

According to Paul the verb first meant “to put something in a place”, a sense still alive in etwas in den Schrank tun and in the compounds zutun, abtun and antun.^[2] Luther still used reflexive sich tun with a direction (so du aber dich beizeiten zu Gott tust), and zusammentun continues this use.^[2] In the sense “to do” it meets machen: machen looks to a result, tun to the activity itself.^[2]

The adjective tunlich “advisable” is recorded in the 16th century, and betulich “fussy” in the 18th, from the now obsolete sich betun “to busy oneself”.^[5][6] In colloquial speech tun is used as an auxiliary: before a fronted infinitive for emphasis (Singen tut sie gern), which is accepted in writing, and before an infinitive as a filler, which is frowned upon; in the south the past subjunctive täte replaces würde.^[1][8]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German tuon is recorded.^[4]
• 8th century – bituon “to shut” is recorded.^[5]
• 16th century – tunlich appears.^[5]
• 18th century – betulich appears.^[5]
• 19th century – The Grimms' dictionary enters the verb as thun.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To do, to carry out an action: Was tust du da?^[8][1]
2. To do something good or bad to someone: Der Hund tut dir nichts.^[1][8]
3. To take up the action of a verb used just before: Er wollte anrufen, und das tat er auch.^[8]
4. (colloquial) To put, to place: Zucker in den Tee tun.^[8][1]
5. To pretend, to act as if: so tun, als ob.^[8][1]
6. (regional, colloquial) To work, to function: Die Uhr tut nicht mehr.^[8][1]
7. (reflexive) To happen, to be going on: Hier tut sich etwas.^[8][1]
8. (auxiliary, colloquial) Used with an infinitive for emphasis or, in the south, to form the conditional.^[8][1]

Word family

• abtun
• antun
• auftun
• vertun
• zutun
• Zutun
• Getue
• Tunichtgut
• tunlich
• betulich
• guttun
• wehtun
• leidtun
• genugtun
• zusammentun

Related words

• Tat
• -tum
• Thema
• Theke
• English do

Usage notes

Tun und Lassen is someone's whole conduct, and Tun und Treiben what someone is up to.^[8] Es mit jemandem zu tun bekommen and etwas mit etwas zu tun haben are frequent phrases.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 22, 1772
4. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 935
5. ^ a b c d e f g Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
6. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 880
7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag