Etymologically
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werden

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈveːʁdən/, [ˈveːɐ̯.dn̩], [ˈvɛɐ̯-][1]

Forms

werden (irregular, third-person singular present wird, past tense wurde or (archaic) ward, past participle geworden or (as an auxiliary) worden, past subjunctive würde, auxiliary sein)[1] In Old High German the verb still alternated between d and t (wirdu, ward beside wurtum, wortan), and Middle High German levelled this out to wirde, wart, wurden, worden.[2] The singular preterite wurde, with the vowel of the plural and an -e taken from the subjunctive, appears in the 15th century beside the older ward.[2] Both forms then lived side by side, and ward survives only in elevated and poetic language.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German werden, inherited from Old High German werdan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *werþan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *werþaną (“to become”).[4][5][6][1] The same strong verb is Gothic 𐍅𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌸𐌰𐌽 (waírþan), Old Norse verða, Old English weorþan, Old Frisian wertha, Old Saxon werthan and Dutch worden, and the obsolete English verb worth “to become”.[4][5][6]

It continues Proto-Indo-European *wert- (“to turn”), a verb also found in Sanskrit वर्तते (vártate, “turns, rolls”), Latin vertō (“to turn”), Lithuanian ver̃sti (“to turn, overturn”) and Old Church Slavonic врьтѣти (vrĭtěti, “to turn”).[4][5][7] Pfeifer takes the root as an extension with a dental of *wer- (“to turn, bend”).[5] From the start of the Germanic record the verb no longer means “to turn” but “to come about, become”: whatever turns becomes something else.[4][8][7] Kluge compares the same shift in the Lithuanian verb vir̃sti (“to fall over; to turn into”).[4]

The old sense of turning survives in -wärts and Wirtel.[4][5] Kroonen suggests that Wurst may also keep the older sense “to twist”.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German werdan is recorded from the 8th century, in the glosses and in almost every Old High German text, with more than 4,000 occurrences.[5][9] It meant “to come into being, arise, grow, happen, be born”, and with a dative “to fall to someone's share”.[10][5]

Semantic evolution

Already in Gothic the verb served as an auxiliary, and in the Germanic languages it formed the passive, as it still does in German, Dutch and Icelandic.[7][5] Its use for the future is a German innovation, regular since late Middle High German.[5] It grew out of constructions with the present participle meaning “to begin to”, such as er wirt lachende “he starts laughing, will laugh”; from the 14th century the infinitive replaced the participle, probably on the model of the older future auxiliaries wollen and sollen.[1]

The present participle werdend came to mean “still developing, not yet finished”, and Paul quotes Goethe: ein Werdender wird immer dankbar sein (“one who is still becoming will always be grateful”).[8] With a dative the verb meant that something came into a person's possession; this survives in zuteil werden “to be granted”.[8] The impatient question wird's bald? (“is it coming soon?”) treats an awaited event as the subject.[8] The noun Werdegang “course of development”, first used of a nation or a state and then of a person, became current in the second half of the 19th century.[5]

Timeline

  • 8th century – Old High German werdan is first recorded.[5][4]
  • 1060–1065 – Middle High German werden appears in Williram of Ebersberg's commentary on the Song of Songs.[11]
  • Late Middle High German – werden becomes the regular auxiliary of the future.[5]
  • 14th century – The infinitive begins to replace the present participle in the future construction.[1]
  • 1473 – The preterite wurde appears in Steinhöwel's De claris mulieribus (Ulm), beside the more frequent ward.[2]
  • 1546 – Luther's Bible replaces the plural preterite warden of the 1522 edition with wurden in John 2:2.[2]
  • Second half of the 19th century – Werdegang becomes current.[5]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To become, to get into a state or take on a quality: Die Milch ist sauer geworden.[3][1]
  2. (impersonal, with a dative) Of a feeling: to come over someone: Dem Kind wurde im Auto schlecht.[3][1]
  3. With a noun: to become, to take up a role or profession: Sie will Tierärztin werden.[3][1]
  4. zu etwas werden “to turn into something”, aus etwas werden “to develop out of something”: Aus dem Streit wurde eine Freundschaft.[3]
  5. (impersonal) To draw near to a point in time: Es wird bald Mitternacht.[3]
  6. (elevated) To come into being, arise, as in Luther's Es werde Licht (Genesis 1:3).[3][8]
  7. (colloquial) To turn out as intended, to come out well: Die Fotos sind gut geworden.[3][1]
  8. (auxiliary, with an infinitive) Forms the future tense, and expresses a supposition: Morgen wird es schneien. Sie wird wohl schon zu Hause sein.[3][1]
  9. (auxiliary, subjunctive würde) Would: Ich würde gern mitkommen.[1]
  10. (auxiliary, with a past participle; participle worden) Forms the passive: Die Brücke wird repariert.[3][1]

Word family

  • Werden
  • werdend
  • Werdegang
  • -wärts
  • Wirtel
  • Vers
  • English worth

Usage notes

The past participle is geworden when the verb stands alone and worden when it is the passive auxiliary (Er ist Arzt geworden, Er ist operiert worden).[1][3] Some dialects still form the future with wollen and sollen, the older auxiliaries that werden displaced in the standard language.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. 29, 221
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 982
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 928
  8. ^ 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
  9. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  10. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 381
  11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling