misery
The word misery comes from the Middle High German Ellende , which initially stands for "other country", "banishment" and later for misery and misery . Misery describes a state of need, poverty or helplessness , educational language also misery ; originally coupled with the additional meaning of loneliness or outcast. Misery is used both as an adjective and as a noun and describes in all forms a "bad" condition.
Etymology and use of terms
The compound adjective from the Old High German elilenti (8th century), Middle High German ellende 'coming from a foreign country, not native' was substantiated in the meaning of 'foreigner'; it also meant ' living in a foreign country , expelled from the innate legal community, banned 'as well as substantiated' expellee , exile '. The word also serves as a translation of the Latin noun exsilium (banishment), a context that the German dictionary of the Brothers Grimm also refers to. Since the 11th century it has also been associated with ' neediness , misery , misery '. The adjective actually meant 'the one whose homeland is different' than the one in which he is defenseless. In modern language, miserable is often used in the sense of 'bad, bad' (wretched poet, villain) or as reinforcement 'very' (“it is miserably hot”). From the adjective the noun misery developed for 'distress, poverty, unhappiness', initially for' stranger, stay in a foreign country (in the other country), homelessness, banishment 'in the 9th century and around the year 1000 also for' suffering To be there'. Even in the 18th century there were uses that preserved the old meaning of the 'stranger' (going into misery, sending).
In the 15th century, so-called poor hostels were mainly set up for pilgrims . In 1885, for example, the Reallexicon of German Antiquities defined associations "that have made care for poor and sick strangers" as misery brotherhoods . The grammatical-critical dictionary of the High German dialect of Adelung defined misery in 1793 as out of date for exile : “a foreign country, as far as staying in it is viewed as a punishment or as an obnoxiousness, exilium; for the most part an outdated word. "
As impoverishment in 1867 after the immiseration theory of Karl Marx of lawful process of deterioration of the living conditions of the working class under capitalism called, synonymous with poverty and pauperism . During the time of National Socialism , the film The Legacy of Jacob Geis and Karl Valentin was banned outright because of the so-called “misery tendency”.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ahd. elilenti is made up of eli , "other, other side, foreign", and lenti , "land" (Friedrich Kluge, Etymological Dictionary , 21st edition, 1975, p. 163). The emphasis on the inflected forms has only recently shifted to the first syllable. Even in Bach's cantatas it is regularly said "im Elénde", "die Elénden".
- ↑ Elend in duden.de, accessed on January 9, 2013
- ↑ Compare there the explanation sv ELEND , vol. 3, col. 406): “1) The original meaning of this beautiful word, which was given by homesickness, is living abroad, in which strangers, and the Latin exsul, exsilium, are, as it were, extra solum close to him. "
- ↑ a b Etymological dictionary according to Pfeifer, online at DWDS , accessed on January 9, 2013
- ^ Götzinger, E .: Reallexicon of German antiquities. Leipzig 1885., pp. 149–150., Online at zeno.org , accessed on January 9, 2013
- ↑ Adelung, Grammar-Critical Dictionary of High German Dialect, Volume 1. Leipzig 1793, pp. 1789–1790, online at zeno.org, accessed on January 9, 2013
- ^ Karl Valentin in Deutsches Filminstitut , accessed on January 9, 2013
