Etymologically
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vorhanden

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Pronunciation

  • /foːɐ̯ˈhandn̩/[1]

Forms

vorhanden (strong nominative masculine singular vorhandener or vorhandner, not comparable)[1]

Etymology

It was fused in the 15th century from the phrase “vor Handen”, with vor “before” and the old dative plural of Hand, literally “before the hands”, as in abhanden.[2][3][4] Being “before the hands” meant being ready to be grasped, and the word was then generalized to presence and existence.[2][4] The plural without umlaut is a remnant of the old u-stem inflection of the noun.[3] An older form was fürhanden.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A 15th-century glossary translates Latin restare “to remain” with vorhanden sin;[5] Dasypodius (1537) gives vorhanden sein for extare “to exist”, and later dictionaries for praesens, praesto “at hand”.[5] Luther writes alles was dir vorhanden kommt zu tun (“whatever comes to your hand to do”).[6]

Semantic evolution

Used with sein, the word at first meant “at hand, present” and also “imminent”: Luther has daß der Tag Christi vorhanden sei (“that the day of Christ is at hand”), and Gellert still wrote of dem vorhandenen Tage, the coming day.[6] Schiller used it of a deed that “is there and done”.[6] The sense “imminent” has died out, and the word now means “existing, available”, both predicatively and before a noun.[6][7] The parallel abhanden “missing, lost” spread from Middle German in the 14th century and is now used almost only with kommen.[3]

Timeline

  • 14th century – The parallel abhanden appears in Middle German.[3]
  • 15th century – vorhanden is first recorded.[2][3][5]
  • 1537 – Dasypodius translates extare with vorhanden sein.[5]
  • 16th century – Luther uses it for “at hand” and “imminent”.[6]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. existing, available, present: Die vorhandenen Plätze reichen für alle Gäste.[7][1][8]
  2. (colloquial) für jemanden nicht mehr vorhanden sein: to be ignored by someone.[7]
  • Hand
  • abhanden
  • zuhanden

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 963
  3. ^ 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
  4. ^ a b Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
  5. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 26, 1153
  6. ^ 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
  7. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  8. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org