zahlen

Forms

zahlen (third-person singular present zahlt, past tense zahlte, past participle gezahlt, auxiliary haben)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German zaln, inherited from Old High German zalōn (“to count, reckon, consider”), inherited from Proto-West Germanic *talōn, inherited from Proto-Germanic *talōną (“to count, recount”).^[2][3][1] The same verb is Old Saxon talon (“to reckon”), Old English talian (“to count, reckon, consider, relate”) and Old Norse tala (“to speak”).^[3][4] It was made from the noun Zahl, from Proto-Germanic *talō (“number; speech”), which also gave Old English talu (“story, account”), the source of English tale, and Dutch taal (“language”).^[2][3][4] Related to it is Gothic 𐍄𐌰𐌻𐌶𐌾𐌰𐌽 (talzjan, “to teach”).^[3]

The further origin of the noun is unclear.^[3] Kluge thinks of the verb seen in Latin dolō (“to hew”), with a special sense “to notch”: the first meaning would then have been “notch”, and since people counted and reckoned on notched tally sticks, “number”.^[2] The Duden dictionary takes the same view, starting from the root Proto-Indo-European *del- (“to split, carve”),^[5] while others connect it with Ancient Greek δόλος (dólos, “bait, trick”) and a root meaning “to aim, reckon”.^[3] Brøndal, with the same tally sticks in mind, took the noun from a Medieval Latin verb for notching, the source of French taille and tally.^[2]

The Grimms' dictionary separates the verb from its twin zählen, from zellen: the older verb meant to tell or set out, while this one started from the arithmetical sense of the noun.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Kluge dates the verb to the 9th century.^[2] Old High German zalōn is found in Notker (about 1000) and in glosses, meaning “to calculate, reckon, think over”.^[7][8][3]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German zaln meant to count, reckon, enumerate and relate, and was used especially of working on the medieval counting board, the zalbret.^[3][6] Because that board was at the same time where money was counted out, the verb came to mean “to hand over a sum of money”;^[5][9] Duden dates this sense to the 16th century,^[5][9] and Kluge says the verb has been restricted to paying a debt since the 17th century.^[2]

Adelung (1793) records the verb only of money, and observes that zahlen and zählen were probably once only regional variants, but that their meanings were now kept strictly apart; with an object, he says, bezahlen was more usual.^[10] Derivatives followed the money sense: Zahlung in the 15th century, auszahlen in the 15th, zahlbar in the 18th and einzahlen in the 19th.^[3] German zahlen was borrowed into Czech and Slovak as cálovat and cálovať.^[11]

Timeline

• 9th century – First record of the Old High German verb.^[2]
• c. 1000 – Notker uses zalōn for “to reckon, think over”.^[7][3]
• 15th century – Zahlung and auszahlen are recorded.^[3]
• 16th century – The verb takes on the sense “to hand over a sum of money”.^[5]
• 17th century – The verb is restricted to paying a debt.^[2]
• 18th century – The adjective zahlbar appears.^[3]
• 1793 – Adelung records the verb only of money.^[10]
• 19th century – einzahlen “to pay in” appears.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pay a sum of money in return for something: Für das gebrauchte Fahrrad hat sie 200 Euro gezahlt.^[9][1]
2. To pay what is due, to settle a debt or a regular charge such as rent or tax: Wir zahlen die Miete immer am Monatsanfang.^[9]
3. (colloquial) To pay for a thing or a service: Die Reparatur zahlt die Versicherung.^[9]
4. (figurative) To pay, atone for something, with für: Für seinen Leichtsinn hat er teuer gezahlt.^[1][9]

Word family

• zahlbar
• Zahlung
• bezahlen
• Zahlmeister
• Zahlschein
• Zahltag
• auszahlen
• einzahlen
• abzahlen
• anzahlen

Related words

• zählen
• erzählen
• English tale

Usage notes

Old High German and Middle High German used the verb for counting as well, and the two verbs overlapped in meaning; modern usage has separated them again, so that zahlen is to pay and zählen to count.^[6][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 g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 1001
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b c d Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
6. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 31, 44
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 403
9. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
10. ^ a b c Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
11. ^ Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de