An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/biegen

by Friedrich Kluge

biegen, verb, ‘to bend, curve,’ from the equivalent Middle High German biegen, Old High German biogan, Gothic biugan, ‘to bend.’ In English the word belongs to a different class, Anglo-Saxon bûgan, English to bow; Dutch biugen; compare beugen, the factitive of this verb. Root bū̆g, from pre-Teutonic bhū̆k, the k of which is changed in the regular manner into h in Bühel, Old High German buhil. In Old Indian we should have expected *bhuc instead of the recorded bhuj (j for g), which agrees with the Teutonic word only in the sense of ‘to bend’; Latin fugio, Greek φεύγω have the more remote signification ‘to flee,’ which Anglo-Saxon bûgan also shows. Further cognates are Bogen and biegsam (Anglo-Saxon bûhsom, bûxom, whence English buxom).