An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Amt

by Friedrich Kluge

Amt, neuter, ‘office, council, jurisdiction,’ from Middle High German ammet, older ambet, Old High German ambaht, ambahti, neuter, ‘service, office, occupation, divine service, mass’; a word common to the Teutonic group. Compare Gothic andbahti, ‘office, service' (from andbahts, ‘servant,’ Old High German ambaht, ‘servant'), Anglo-Saxon anbiht, ambiht, neuter, ‘office, service,’ ambiht, masculine, ‘servant' (obsolete at the beginning of the Middle English period), Dutch ambt, Old Saxon ambaht-skepi, ‘service,’ ambaht-man, ‘servant.’ The relation of the common Teutonic word to the Gallic-Latin ambactus (mentioned in Caesar's Bell. Gall.), ‘vassal,’ is much disputed. The West Teutonic words may be best explained from Gothic and Old Teutonic ándbahta-, and the genuinely Teutonic aspect of such a word cannot indeed be denied, even if the origin of -bahts cannot now be determined (and- is a verbal particle, Modern High German ant-). The emphatic testimony of Festus, however, is against the Teutonic origin of the Gallic-Latin ambactus; ambactus apud Ennium lingua gallica servus appellatur. This coincides with the fact that the word can be fully explained from Keltic; ambactus contains the Keltic prefix amb- (Latin amb-) ‘about’; and ag is an oft-recurring verbal root (see Acker) in Keltic, meaning ‘to go’; hence ambactus, ‘messenger’ (literally ‘one sent hither and thither’), from which comes Middle Latin ambactia, ambactiata, ‘errand’ (Italian ambasciata, French ambassade, ‘embassy’). This explanation of the Latin-Romance cognates makes it possible that the Old Teutonic class was borrowed from Keltic and transformed (Gothic andbahts for ambahts); in any case, it was borrowed in prehistoric times (compare Reich).