An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Herbst

by Friedrich Kluge

Herbst, masculine, ‘autumn, harvest,’ from the equivalent Middle High German hęrbest, Old High German hęrbist, masculine; compare Middle Low German hervest, Dutch herfst, Anglo-Saxon hœrfest, masculine, and the equivalent English harvest; a common West Teutonic word, archaic in form (whether Old Icelandic haust, neuter, ‘autumn,’ Swedish and Danish höst, are identical with Herbst is still very dubious). Hence the statement of Tacitus (Germ. 26) — ‘(Germani) autumni parinde nomen ac bona ignorantur,’^[1] can scarcely be accepted. It is true that Herbst in Upper German is almost entirely restricted to ‘the fruit season,’ especially ‘the vintage’ (the season itselt is properly called Spätjahr, Suabian Spätling). This coincides with the fact that Herbst is connected with an obsolete Teutonic root harb, from Aryan karp (Latin carpere, καρπός, ‘fruit’), ‘to gather fruit,’ which perhaps appears also in Lithuanian kerpù (kìrpti), ‘to shear.’ In Gothic the term is asans (‘season for work, for tillage’; compare Ernte).

Annotations

The following annotations were added by a Wikisource user, and are not part of the original work.

1. "Of the name and blessings of Autumn, they are equally ignorant." (Tacitus on Germany)