wissenschaftlich

Forms

wissenschaftlich (strong nominative masculine singular wissenschaftlicher, comparative wissenschaftlicher, superlative am wissenschaftlichsten)^[1]

Etymology

It is from German Wissenschaft + -lich.^[1][2] The noun is late Middle High German wiʒʒenschaft (“knowledge”) (14th century), a collective formation from the infinitive of wissen, which at first simply meant “knowledge”; its modern sense developed from the 17th century.^[3][4] The verb goes back to Proto-Germanic *wait (“I know”), an old perfect meaning “I have seen, found”, the same form as Sanskrit वेद (véda) and Ancient Greek οἶδα (oîda), related to Latin videō (“to see”).^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

According to the Grimms' dictionary the adjective is rare until the middle of the 18th century;^[6] Thomasius, Leibniz, Bodmer and apparently Gottsched and Lessing do not use it.^[6] It occurs once in 1687 in E. Weigel with an unrelated sense, and is then entered in dictionaries: Kramer (1702) glosses it with Italian scientifico, Ludwig (1716) with English scientifical and Steinbach (1734) with Latin scibilis.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In 1745 J. A. Scheibe wrote of different tastes in wissenschaftlichen dingen, meaning musical matters, in the wider old sense of Wissenschaft.^[6] The stricter sense appears in 1762, when a critic set knowing painting “scientifically” against knowing poetry “by art”.^[6] The change followed that of the noun, which in the Enlightenment became the name of a learned discipline and displaced Kunst.^[4] Adelung in 1793 explains the word as “in the manner of a science”, knowledge that traces single things back to general concepts, as opposed to merely historical knowledge.^[7] Wissenschaftler “scientist” is from the 18th century, first used slightingly.^[4]

Timeline

• 14th century – Late Middle High German wiʒʒenschaft “knowledge”.^[3]
• 1687 – An isolated first record in Weigel.^[6]
• 1702 – Entered in Kramer's dictionary.^[6]
• 1745 – First literary use, by Scheibe.^[6]
• 1757 – Stiehl's Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Wapenkunde.^[6]
• 18th century – Wissenschaftler is formed.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Scientific, scholarly: relating to, belonging to or based on science or scholarship: eine wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift;^[8][1] eine wissenschaftliche Hilfskraft, a research assistant.^[8][1]
2. Following the principles and methods of science: Die Wirkung des Mittels ist wissenschaftlich nicht belegt.^[8][2]

Related words

• Wissenschaftler
• Wissenschaft
• wissen

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org
3. ^ a b Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 993
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 992
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 30, 798
7. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf, p. 4, 1582
8. ^ a b c Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag