wählen

Forms

wählen (third-person singular present wählt, past tense wählte, past participle gewählt, auxiliary haben)^[1] Old High German had both wellen and wellan, with a double /l/ from the following /j/;^[2] Middle High German usually has weln, with wellen in the 12th century and later in Upper German, and an old past tense walte lasted into the 15th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German weln, inherited from Old High German wellen, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *walljan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *waljaną (“to choose”).^[3][4][1] The same verb is Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌽 (waljan), Old Norse velja, Old Saxon willian and Swedish välja;^[3][5][6] it is lacking in Frisian and English, and later Dutch and Low German did not have it either, Low German taking it back from High German in the 16th century.^[2]

It belongs to the root Proto-Indo-European *u̯el- (“to want, choose”) of wollen and wohl.^[3][4][7] Kroonen and Wiktionary write the root *welh₁- and take the verb as a causative or factitive formation in /-eje-/,^[6][1] and the Grimms compared Old Church Slavonic волити (voliti, “to want, prefer”) and Latin volō (“to want”).^[2] Kluge says it is morphologically unclear how this verb split off from the one meaning “to want”; from today's point of view the verb looks like a derivative of Wahl, and its vowel has been aligned with that noun.^[5] Pfeifer adds that the Old High German verb also entered the paradigm of the verb “to want” as an infinitive.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German wellen is dated to the 8th century, and the prefixed irwellen to around 800.^[3] In Notker and Otfrid and in the glosses it means “to choose, elect”.^[8] The Gothic and Old High German texts use prefixed forms (gawaljan, giwellen, irwellen) far more often than the simple verb.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Wählen replaced the old strong verb kiesen, which survives in the participle erkoren;^[5][9][7] Adelung still found kören and kiesen in the dialects.^[10] Since Middle High German the verb has also meant “to elect to an office”, and Wähler (Middle High German welære) first named the electors who chose the king.^[7][3] Trübner's dictionary calls wählen gehen “to go and vote” a fixed expression.^[7] The verb has been used for dialling a telephone number since the 1920s.^[7]

The participle gewählt “carefully chosen” dates from Early New High German and since the 18th century is used mainly of choice language (1794).^[7] Wählerisch “fastidious” appears at the end of the 17th century and was still a low word for Adelung and Campe.^[3][7] Wahlverwandtschaft was coined by Weigel in 1779 for Latin attractio electiva in chemistry and used figuratively by Goethe in his novel of 1809.^[3]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German wellen.^[3]
• About 800 – irwellen “to choose”.^[3]
• Middle High German – The sense “to elect to an office”;^[7][3] welære “elector”.^[7][3]
• 16th century – The verb re-enters Low German from High German.^[2]
• End of the 17th century – wählerisch.^[3][4]
• 1779 – Weigel coins Wahlverwandtschaft.^[3]
• 1809 – Goethe's novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften.^[3]
• 1920s – eine Nummer wählen “to dial a number”.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To choose, decide on one of two or more possibilities: Sie wählte das blaue Kleid.^[11][1]
2. To weigh up the possibilities before choosing: Er musste zwischen zwei Angeboten wählen.^[11]
3. To dial a telephone number: Wählen Sie bitte die Durchwahl.^[11][1]
4. To vote, or to elect someone or vote for a party: Am Sonntag wird ein neuer Bürgermeister gewählt.^[11][1]

Word family

• Wähler
• wählerisch
• wählbar
• erwählen
• auserwählen
• auswählen
• abwählen
• wiederwählen
• einwählen
• verwählen

Related words

• Wahl
• wollen
• wohl

Usage notes

Das kleinere Übel wählen is to accept the lesser evil, and seine Worte wählen to choose one's words with care.^[11] Adelung records wählen in sugar refineries for sorting the different kinds of raw sugar in a barrel.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 27, 550
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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 c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 916
5. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 967
6. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 378
9. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 490
10. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 4, 1339
11. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag