Shores

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The word shore means the shore of a river or a sea.

Origin and use

The word, already used in Middle High German as “gestat”, was created as a reinforcement of the synonymous noun “stade”, Old High German “stad [o]”. The actually Middle and Low German word "Ufer" was not used and probably not understood in the Upper German- speaking area until the early modern period; so it was necessary that in the Basel edition of the Luther Bible from 1523 the word “shore” was explained by “gestad”.

As a geographical technical term and in everyday language, “shore” has since been completely replaced by the word “shore”. In the German-speaking world, it is therefore only occasionally used as archaism or in an elevated style.

The most famous use in the classic German literature of the winged word become the beginning of Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell (1804):

The lake smiles, it invites you to take a bath.
The boy fell asleep on the green shore

In Austria in particular, the word "Gestade" is even more widespread as part of traditional geographical names. Examples:

The names of Gstättengasse and Gstättentor in Salzburg's old town also come from the word “Gestade”.

High and low

In common parlance , the term Hochgestade, Hochgeschwade or Hochufer means the edge of the terrain between the low terrace and the floodplain.

In the Karlsruhe area , the elevated area of ​​the Rhine plain outside the original Rhine floodplain is called Hochgestade. Geomorphologically it is a low terrace . The Tiefgestade is the Rheinaue, the Rhine lowlands left and right of the current course of the Rhine in the Upper Rhine Graben. Under bank break one understands the edge between high bank and low bank. The Gestadebruch is also known as Rheinberg or Rheinbruch. The use of high and low levels for the areas is unusual and usually only found on the Upper Rhine.

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Gestade  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Duden, Volume 7, Dictionary of Origin . 2nd Edition. Etymology of the German Language, 1989, p. 237. gestade. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 5 : Gefoppe – Drifts - (IV, 1st section, part 2). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1897 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
  2. ^ First act on Wikisource