Etymologically
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verschwinden

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Pronunciation

  • /fɛɐ̯ˈʃvɪndn̩/, /fɛɐ̯ˈʃvɪndən/[1]

Forms

verschwinden (class 3 strong, third-person singular present verschwindet, past tense verschwand, past participle verschwunden, past subjunctive verschwände, auxiliary sein)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German verswinden, inherited from Old High German firswintan, formed from German ver- + schwinden.[1][2][3][4] The same formation is Old Saxon farswindan, Middle Low German vorswinden and Dutch verzwinden, while Danish forsvinde and Swedish försvinna were taken from German.[3]

schwinden is Old High German swintan (“to waste away, wither, faint”), Middle High German swinden, and is the same word as Old English swindan, from Proto-West Germanic *swendan.[5][6] Its further origin is uncertain.[5] Pfeifer compares Slavic verbs for “to wither” such as Russian вянуть (vjanutʹ), which would point to a root Proto-Indo-European *(s)u̯endʰ- (“to dwindle”), and notes the similar Old High German swīnan (“to diminish”);[5][2] Köbler gives the root with a question mark.[5][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German firswintan is first recorded in glosses of the second quarter of the 9th century and then in Notker, meaning “to vanish, waste away, melt, perish”.[2][5] The simple verb swintan is found in glosses from about 800.[6]

Semantic evolution

The compound came to mean that something grows fainter to the senses or passes away altogether, but it is also used when the thing itself remains intact, as when the sun disappears behind a cloud.[7] Adelung (1793) defines it as withdrawing quickly from sight, and quotes the angel of the Lord who vanished in Judges 6:21.[8] Etwas verschwinden lassen came to mean “to steal”, and the present participle forms verschwindend gering “vanishingly small”.[7] Colloquially verschwinden is simply “to leave”, and euphemistically “to go to the toilet”.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 800 – Old High German swintan appears in glosses.[6]
  • 9th century – firswintan is recorded in glosses.[2][5]
  • c. 1000 – Notker uses the verb.[2][8]
  • 1793 – Adelung records verschwinden with the auxiliary sein.[8]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To move out of someone's sight and no longer be visible; to disappear, vanish: Das Boot verschwand hinter der Insel.[4][1]
  2. To cease to exist; to be lost, go missing;[4][9][7] etwas verschwinden lassen, to make something disappear, to steal it.[4][9][7]
  3. (colloquial) To leave, go away;[4][1] verschwinde!, “get lost!”; euphemistically, to go to the toilet.[4][1]
  4. (mathematics) To take the value zero.[9]

Word family

  • Verschwinden
  • verschwindend
  • verschwenden
  • schwinden
  • Schwindel

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  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. 25, 1217
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  5. ^ a b c d e f 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 Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 8, 1592
  7. ^ 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
  8. ^ a b c Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
  9. ^ a b c Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org