The ''Deutsches Wörterbuch'' (; "The German Dictionary"), abbreviated ''DWB'', is the largest and most comprehensive

dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

of the

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and Official language, official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Ita ...

in existence.Synopsis of the ''Deutsches Wörterbuch''
at the Language Research Centre, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, retrieved 27 June 2012.Clifford Wunderlich
''Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm''
, Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard University Divinity School, April 2012. retrieved 27 June 2012. Encompassing modern

High German The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...

vocabulary in use since 1450, it also includes

loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...

s adopted from other languages into German. Entries cover the

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

, meanings, attested forms,

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

s, usage peculiarities, and regional differences of words found throughout the

German speaking world This article details the geographical distribution of speakers of the German language, regardless of the legislative status within the countries where it is spoken. In addition to the German-speaking area (german: Deutscher Sprachraum) in Europe, ...

. The dictionary's

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

approach, illuminated by examples from

primary source In the study of history as an academic discipline, a primary source (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under ...

documents, makes it to German what the ''

Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a com ...

'' is to

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

.Thomas Schares: ''Untersuchungen zu Anzahl, Umfang und Struktur der Artikel der Erstbearbeitung des Deutschen Wörterbuchs von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm'', Trier: Universität Trier, 2006, p. 41-4
Abstract in EnglishFull article in German
retrieved 27 June 2012. The first completed DWB lists over 330,000

headword In morphology and lexicography, a lemma (plural ''lemmas'' or ''lemmata'') is the canonical form, dictionary form, or citation form of a set of word forms. In English, for example, ''break'', ''breaks'', ''broke'', ''broken'' and ''breaking'' ...

s in 67,000 print columns spanning 32 volumes.''Das DWB''
at the Deutsches Wörterbuch research project website , retrieved 27 June 2012. The ''Deutsches Wörterbuch'' was begun by the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...

in 1838 and the initial volumes were published in 1854. Unfinished at the time of their deaths, the dictionary was finally completed by a succession of later scholars and institutions in 1961. In 1971, a 33rd supplement volume was published containing 25,000 additional entries. New research projects began in 2004 to expand and update the oldest parts of the dictionary to modern academic standards. Volumes A–F were planned for completion in 2012 by the Language Research Centre at the

Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities The Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (german: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften), abbreviated BBAW, is the official academic society for the natural sciences and humanities for the States of Germany, German ...

and the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

History

Bundesarchiv Bild 183-13492-0006, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Bibliothek

Beginnings

Beginning in 1830, Weidmann's Publishing House in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

repeatedly approached

Jacob Jacob (; ; ar, يَعْقُوب, Yaʿqūb; gr, Ἰακώβ, Iakṓb), later given the name Israel, is regarded as a patriarch of the Israelites and is an important figure in Abrahamic religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. J ...

and

Wilhelm Grimm Wilhelm Carl Grimm (also Karl; 24 February 178616 December 1859) was a German author and anthropologist, and the younger brother of Jacob Grimm, of the literary duo the Brothers Grimm. Life and work Wilhelm was born in February 1786 in Hanau, in ...

with a proposal for a large new dictionary, spanning

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

vocabulary from

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Reformation, Protestant Refo ...

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

. As busy professors at

Göttingen University Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The orig ...

, the

rejected such a complex undertaking. A political scandal then dramatically changed matters. In 1837, the new King of Hanover, Ernst August, dissolved parliament and demanded oaths of allegiance from all civil servants. The brothers and five other professors refused and this so-called "

Göttingen Seven The Göttingen Seven (german: Göttinger Sieben) were a group of seven liberal professors at University of Göttingen. In 1837, they protested against the annullment of the constitution of the Kingdom of Hanover by its new ruler, King Ernest Augu ...

" were removed from their positions by royal order. The brothers then became political refugees in their former home in

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...

The Grimms (1838–1863)

By October 1838, the Brothers had a contract with Weidmann's and the prestigious Leipzig journal ''

Allgemeine Zeitung The ''Allgemeine Zeitung'' was the leading political daily journal in Germany in the first part of the 19th century. It has been widely recognised as the first world-class German journal and a symbol of the German press abroad. The ''Allgemeine ...

'' published an announcement of the start of work on the DWB. The brothers initially expected the project to take ten years and produce 6–7 volumes. Circumstances seemed favorable because they were provided with staff and spacious apartments in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

at the invitation of the Prussian Minister in 1841. However, difficulties soon began. Not only did the acquisition of source excerpts take much longer than expected, but illness and the

Revolution of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...

interrupted the work. Eight volumes consisting of 1824 printed columns, a bibliography and a detailed preface were finally published on 13 April 1854. The first edition of the ''DWB'' exceeded the expectations of the brothers and the publishers. The press called it a "great national work" and its first shipments sold 10,000 copies. As it included words regarded as "indelicate," Jacob anticipated criticism of this and stated the following in the Foreword: :"This dictionary is not an immoral book, but a scientific undertaking. Even the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

does not lack for words that are frowned upon in fine society." ::-

Jacob Grimm Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm (4 January 1785 – 20 September 1863), also known as Ludwig Karl, was a German author, linguist, philologist, jurist, and folklorist. He is known as the discoverer of Grimm's law of linguistics, the co-author of th ...

, ''Vorwort 1. Band, S. XXXIV'' , Leipzig 1854 More volumes and updates were planned, but in their lifetime the brothers could only fully complete portions: Wilhelm Grimm wrote the articles to the letter D and died in 1859; Jacob, who was able to fully complete the letters A, B, C and E, died in 1863 while working on the entry for "Frucht" (fruit).

Post-Grimm era (1863–1907)

After the deaths of the Grimm Brothers, successive linguists continued the work. The first of these were close associates of the brothers,

Rudolf Hildebrand Heinrich Rudolf Hildebrand (13 March 1824 – 28 October 1894) was a German studies, Germanist, contributor to, and then, editor of the Brothers Grimm, Grimm brothers' ''Deutsches Wörterbuch''. He also wrote on the history of German folksongs, and ...

and Karl Weigand. The ''DWB'' also became an affair of state when

Otto von Bismarck Otto, Prince of Bismarck, Count of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg (, ; 1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), born Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck, was a conservative German statesman and diplomat. From his origins in the upper class of J ...

requested the

North German Confederation The North German Confederation (german: Norddeutscher Bund) was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated st ...

Federal Council to provide state funding in 1867. The young

Germanist German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German hi ...

Moritz Heyne Moritz Heyne (June 8, 1837 in Weißenfels – March 1, 1906 in Göttingen) was a German Germanic peoples, Germanic linguistics, linguist (''Germanist''). He taught as a professor at the University of Halle (1869-1870), University of Basel (1870-), ...

joined the project and became one of its most important contributors. By 1888 Heyne had invited graduate students to post articles under his supervision, turning the DWB into a true consortium for the first time. Included in this group was Rudolf Meißner who collaborated on the ''DWB'' for six decades (1889–1948). These ever-changing authors had different approaches and the work also proceeded very slowly. Hermann Wunderlich, Hildebrand's successor, only finished ''Gestüme'' to ''Gezwang'' after 20 years of work and 3000 columns of text. By 1905, academic professionals across Germany were unanimous: management of the DWB had to change or it would never be completed.

Academy of Sciences (1908–1961)

The prestigious

Prussian Academy of Sciences The Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences (german: Königlich-Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften) was an academy established in Berlin, Germany on 11 July 1700, four years after the Prussian Academy of Arts, or "Arts Academy," to which "Berlin ...

took on formal development of the ''DWB'' in 1908 with

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

remaining a central collection point for

source document A source document is a document in which data collected for a clinical trial is first recorded. This data is usually later entered in the case report form A case report form (or CRF) is a paper or electronic questionnaire specifically used in clin ...

s. Operations were streamlined and salaried workers were provided through funding by the Empire. This period of reform and consolidation ended with

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

in 1914. By the early '20s the project was again close to collapse as

German hyperinflation German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

drove costs of production to over 5 billion marks. A donation of just $152 from the United States in 1923 saved the ''DWB'' from ruin.

Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...

repeatedly advocated for the dictionary and funding was eventually taken up by the Emergency Association of German Science. Due to the efficiencies of a permanent staff of lexicographers as well as standardized policies for production, the period between 1931–1939 saw six times as much work completed as in the previous years. Nearly 100 years after its conception the DWB was permanently institutionalized and its conclusion was in sight.

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

then paralyzed the work. Employees were drafted into military service, resources were scarce, and the archived holdings were moved to a

potash mine Potash () includes various mined and manufactured salt (chemistry), salts that contain potassium in water-solute, soluble form.Bernburg an der Saale to protect them from Allied bombing. The remaining three employees continued some work at Schloss Fredersdorf outside Berlin. After the war the USSR granted permission to move the archived materials from Fredersdorf and Bernburg back to Berlin in 1947. The new

German Academy of Sciences at Berlin The German Academy of Sciences at Berlin, german: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (DAW), in 1972 renamed the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (''Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR (AdW)''), was the most eminent research institution ...

then took on the work of the DWB. With the founding of

East Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

in 1949, communication between Berlin and Göttingen became more difficult. Despite these political complications, the ''DWB'' was finally published in January 1961, 123 years after its beginnings. It totaled 67,744 text columns, 320,000 keywords and weighed 84 kg. A 1971 supplement contains 25,000 additional entries and references to primary sources.

Later versions

Planning for a second edition already began in 1957, four years before the first edition was finished. The revision was intended especially to bring the oldest part of the ''Dictionary'', the letters A-F originally authored by the

, up to date. It also was to be a cooperative effort between

East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fa ...

West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...

: the

Academy of Sciences of the GDR The German Academy of Sciences at Berlin, german: Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (DAW), in 1972 renamed the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (''Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR (AdW)''), was the most eminent research institution ...

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

would complete A-C, and the

in the West would complete D-F. The initial fascicles of this revision were published in 1965, but it remains unfinished today, with the letters B and C (originally assigned to the Berlin team) still in progress. Work on the project in

was greatly hindered for political reasons because the DWB was regarded as a "bourgeois" lexicography project. In the course of the sixties, most of its staff were taken off the project and used for other tasks. In 1984, the original 1961 version of the ''DWB'' was published in a paperback edition, now out of print. In 1999 a new paperback printing of all 33 volumes (weight 30 kg), published by Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, became available ().

Digital edition

In 2004 the Competence Center for Electronic Text Processing and Publication in the Humanities at the

University of Trier The University of Trier (german: Universität Trier), in the German city of Trier, was founded in 1473. Closed in 1798 by order of the then French administration in Trier, the university was re-established in 1970 after a hiatus of some 172 y ...

digitized the entire 300 million printed characters according to the method of double entry. The entire body was manually entered twice in China to eliminate error. A set of CD-ROMs of this digitization was released for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac OS. In this version spelling errors in the original were corrected. An online version of the first edition is also available at the

. The digitized first edition of the ''DWB'' met with lively interest. Every day the online version receives tens of thousands of hits and the CD-ROM of the first edition is now in its fourth updated distribution.

New edition

In 2006 the unfinished project to revise and update the A-F volumes to modern academic standards was resumed. The conclusion of this work (the B and C volumes) was finished in 2016; fascicles are appearing with the S. Hirzel Verlag as they are completed. However, the

announced that no revision of the volumes G to Z is planned. According to the Academic Director of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, Wolf-Hagen Krauth, the sheer labor that would be required exceeds the possibilities for funding it in today's world.

References

External links

''Das Deutsche Wörterbuch'' on the Internet

Official website of the ''Deutsche Wörterbuch'' Revision Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Deutsches Worterbuch German dictionaries Brothers Grimm