Etymologically
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wünschen

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈvʏnʃən/, [ˈvʏnʃn̩][1]

Forms

wünschen (third-person singular present wünscht, past tense wünschte, past participle gewünscht, auxiliary haben)[1] From the 15th century, and more often in the 16th and 17th, the verb was also written with an inserted consonant, wündschen or wüntschen.[2] Upper German sometimes has a strong participle gewunschen, as in Abraham a Sancta Clara (1690).[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German wünschen, inherited from Old High German wunsken, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *wunskijan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *wunskijaną (“to wish”).[1][3][4] The same verb is Old Norse œskja, Old English wȳscan, English wish, Middle Dutch wunscen and Dutch wensen.[3][2]

It was formed from the noun Wunsch, Proto-Germanic *wunskaz, also found in Old High German wunsc and Old Norse ósk.[5][3][4] Kluge notes that the noun itself seems to go back to a verbal formation in -sk-, like Sanskrit वांछ् (vāṃch, “to wish, desire”),[5][1] and Kroonen reconstructs that verb as a present of the type Proto-Indo-European *Hnh₁-ske-.[3] The root is Proto-Indo-European *wenh₁- (“to strive for, wish, love”), also behind gewinnen, Wonne and wohnen, and, outside Germanic, in Latin venus (“love, charm”).[5][6][1] In Old English and Old Norse the /n/ was lost before /s/ with lengthening of the vowel.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German wunsken is first recorded in glosses of about 765, and then in Otfrid and Notker, meaning “to wish, long for, desire”.[7][8]

Semantic evolution

In Middle High German the verb usually took a genitive of the thing wished for, as in the Old Testament poem of Exodus: swes wunschet dîn muot “whatever your heart wishes”.[9] Its noun Wunsch then meant above all the power to create something extraordinary, personified as the giver of all perfection, and only later the personal longing.[10][11]

Folk belief knew a magic wishing, as in the Grimms' Froschkönig: In den alten Zeiten, wo das Wünschen noch geholfen hat (“In the old days, when wishing still helped”); the idea survives in verwünschen “to curse, bewitch”.[11] The Wünschelrute, the divining rod, is first recorded in 1532.[11] Polite use made the verb a way of making a request, as in a shop assistant's Sie wünschen? “what can I get you?”.[12] The verb was borrowed as Czech vinšovat and Slovene voščiti (“to wish”).[13]

Timeline

  • c. 765 – Old High German wunsken appears in glosses.[7]
  • c. 1120–1130 – Middle High German wünschen is used in the Old Testament poem of Exodus.[14]
  • 15th century – Spellings with an inserted consonant, wündschen, appear.[2]
  • 1532 – First record of Wünschelrute.[11]
  • 1690 – Abraham a Sancta Clara uses the strong participle gewunschen.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To wish for, hope for: Zum Geburtstag wünscht sie sich ein neues Fahrrad.[12][1]
  2. To want, request, as something one has a claim to: Der Kunde wünscht eine schriftliche Bestätigung.[12][1]
  3. To wish someone something: Wir wünschen euch eine gute Reise![1][15]
  4. (formal, chiefly negative) Not to tolerate: Ich wünsche hier keinen Lärm.[1][12]

Word family

  • Wünschelrute
  • verwünschen

Usage notes

The fixed phrase etwas lässt zu wünschen übrig means that something is not good enough, and etwas lässt nichts zu wünschen übrig that it is fully satisfactory.[12]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. 30, 2038
  3. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  4. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 940
  5. ^ a b c Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 996
  6. ^ a b Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 4, 1625
  9. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 998
  10. ^ Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 997
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  13. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  14. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  15. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org