warten

Forms

warten (third-person singular present wartet, past tense wartete, past participle gewartet, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German warten, inherited from Old High German wartēn, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *wardēn, inherited from Proto-Germanic *wardāną (“to guard, watch over”).^[2][1] The same verb is Old Saxon wardōn, Old Norse varða, Old English weardian and Old Frisian wardia;^[2][3] it is not recorded in Gothic.^[4] It passed early into the Romance languages, as French garder (“to guard”) and regarder (“to look at”), and Garde came back from French.^[2][4]

Duden and Paul derive the verb from the noun Warte (“lookout”), so that it properly means “to keep a lookout”,^[5][6] and Kluge sees in it an extension of the root of wahren.^[2] Köbler gives the root as Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to perceive, watch out”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German wartēn is first recorded in the Benedictine Rule, in the last quarter of the 8th century, and then in the Tatian, Otfrid and Notker.^[7][8] It meant “to look, watch, observe, take heed, beware”; the sense “to wait” first appears in Notker, about 1000.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

From “directing one's gaze at something” came both “to look out for what is coming” and “to take care of something”.^[3][6] In the sense “to wait” it displaced the old strong verb Old High German bītan, Early New High German beiten, which survived until the 17th century.^[3][6] The sense “to tend, care for” developed in Middle High German and lives on in Wärter and Wartung; today it is used chiefly of servicing machines.^[5][6]

The object was once in the genitive, as in Lessing's hier habe ich deiner unter den Palmen gewartet (“here I waited for you under the palms”); warten auf is now usual.^[6] Na warte! is a threat.^[6][9] Luther's aller Augen warten auf dich (“the eyes of all wait upon thee”) shows an older sense “to set one's hope on”.^[6] Warteschleife “holding pattern” was voted Unwort des Jahres in 1991, when it was applied to East German public employees awaiting review.^[6] Polish borrowed the verb as wartować “to keep watch” (1572).^[10]

Timeline

• Late 8th century – Old High German wartēn in the Benedictine Rule.^[7]
• About 1000 – Notker uses it in the sense “to wait”.^[3]
• 15th century – Wartung is recorded.^[3]
• 1572 – Polish wartować “to keep watch”.^[10]
• 17th century – The rival verb beiten goes out of use.^[3][6]
• 1991 – Warteschleife is the Unwort des Jahres.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wait (for), usually with auf: Wir warten seit einer Stunde auf den Bus.^[9][1] Na warte! (colloquial) is a threat.^[9]
2. To stay at a place waiting: Sie wartete vor dem Kino.^[9]
3. (transitive) To maintain or service a machine: Die Heizung wird jedes Jahr gewartet.^[1][11]

Word family

• Wärter
• Wartung
• abwarten
• erwarten
• aufwarten
• Wartezimmer
• Warteliste
• Warteschleife

Related words

• Warte
• wahren
• Garde
• English ward

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 972
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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 Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 27, 2125
5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 921
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c d Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 373
9. ^ a b c d Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
10. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
11. ^ Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org