verdienen

Forms

verdienen (third-person singular present verdient, past tense verdiente, past participle verdient, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German verdienen, inherited from Old High German firdionōn, a formation with the prefix ver- on dienen “to serve”.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary takes it as a calque of Latin dēserviō.^[1] The Grimms note that the simple verb is rarely transitive, and that the prefix makes the compound almost always transitive.^[5]

The base thionōn continues Proto-Germanic *þewanōną (“to serve”), a verb formed to *þewaz (“servant”), seen in Gothic 𐌸𐌹𐌿𐍃 (þius, “servant”) and Old English þēow.^[6][2] Kluge and Duden connect the noun with the root Proto-Indo-European *tekʷ- (“to run”) in Lithuanian tekėti (“to run, flow”), so that the servant was properly “a runner”.^[6][7] Pfeifer calls the connection possible.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German firdionōn is recorded about 1000 in Notker, meaning “to earn”.^[4][2] Middle High German verdienen meant “to obtain by service or fitting conduct”, and also “to repay, requite” and “to incur (guilt)”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

The sense “to repay a favour by service” was common in older German: in the Nibelungenlied Kriemhild promises Volker ich sol eʒ wol verdienen “I shall repay it”, and the formula lived on in letters of the 15th to 17th centuries before dying out.^[5] Adelung records ein Lehen verdienen, to perform personal services for a fief.^[10]

Paul derives the main modern senses from “to obtain by serving”: first “to earn by work” (Geld, sein Brot verdienen), then “to deserve” for one's efforts, whether reward or punishment.^[3] Duden 7 dates the sense “to deserve a reward or a punishment” to Middle High German.^[7] The noun Verdienst (15th century) was masculine for “earnings” and neuter for “merit”, a distinction that settled only after Adelung, and the reflexive sich verdienen (still in 1753) gave way to sich verdient machen.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – Old High German firdionōn in Notker.^[4]
• c. 1200 – Middle High German verdienen “to repay” in the Nibelungenlied and Hartmann's Iwein.^[5]
• 15th century – The noun Verdienst is recorded.^[3]
• 15th century – verdienstlich “meritorious” is recorded.^[2]
• 1753 – Aichinger still uses reflexive sich verdienen.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To earn: to receive as pay for work: sein Studium mit Nachhilfe verdienen.^[11][1]
2. To have a certain income: gut verdienen, wenig verdienen.^[11]
3. To make a profit: an etwas verdienen, mit Aktien ein Vermögen verdienen.^[11][1]
4. To deserve, merit: Respekt verdienen, eine Strafe verdient haben.^[11][1]

Word family

• Verdienst
• verdienstlich
• verdient
• Verdiener
• gutverdienend

Related words

• dienen
• Dienst
• Diener
• Demut

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
4. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
5. ^ 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. 25, 223
6. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 199
7. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 203
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 1, 426
10. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
11. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag