Curmudgeon
In parlance, a curmudgeon is a bad-tempered or grumpy person. Curmudgeons are also often described as haters or misanthropes . This is not a short-term bad mood, but rather a character trait.
Griesgram probably comes from Middle High German grisgram (also grisgramen or grisgrimmen ), which means to grind teeth; As a verb, it can be found in this sense in numerous Old and Middle High German translations of the biblical fletus et stridor dentium (" howling and chattering teeth "). The word probably goes back to the root "grim" and is related to the English grim (dark, grim). This means that the word is also related to semolina , which denotes ground grain and is associated with “grinding teeth”. The Old High German origin apparently lies in the words "grisgramdn" or "criscramôn", which means to crunch .
In the German edition of Sesame Street, Oscar the Grouch is referred to as curmudgeon .
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Heinrich Ludolf Ahrens : Contributions to the Greek and Latin etymology . 1st issue, BG Teubner, Leipzig 1879. pp. 197-199 .
- ↑ Lazarus Geiger : The origin of language . J. G. Cotta, 1869, p. 163 .
- ↑ Gunhild Simon: On the German language: Magazin Deutsch ( Memento from April 22, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), in the Language Current section , 28 November 2006.
- ^ Hermann Hirt : Etymology of the New High German Language . Beck Verlag, Munich 1921, p. 157 .
- ↑ Ludwig Tobler : About the word composition . F. Dümmler, 1868, p. 11 .
