An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/heben

by Friedrich Kluge

heben, verb, ‘to raise, lift, levy, solve (doubts) settle (disputes), remove,’ from Middle High German hęben, hęvea, ‘to rise, raise, list,’ Old High German hęffan, hęvan (properly hęffu, hęvis, hęvit, hęffamês, infinitive hęffan), from habjan, which occurs in Gothic in the sense of ‘to raise, lift up’; root, haf, hab; b properly belonged in the strong verb to the preterite plural and participle, but may have found its way into other stems. Anglo-Saxon hębban (singular hębbe, hęfst, hęfþ, &c.), English to heave; Modern Dutch heffen; Old Icelandic hefja. Respecting j as a formative element of the present stem in strong verb, see under schaffen, lachen, &c.; it corresponds to Latin i in verbs of the 3rd conjugation, such as facio. Hence Latin capio corresponds exactly to Gothic hafjen; Aryan root kap. There are numerous examples in Teutonic of the sense ‘to seize,’ which belongs to the Latin verb; see under Haft. Since Latin capio is not allied to habeo, and Latin habeo is cognate with Teutonic haben (capio, root kap, habeo, ‘to have,’ root khabh), haben is entirely unconnected with heben. Yet in certain cases it cannot be doubted that the words related to haben have influenced the meaning of those connected with heben; some words may be indifferently assigned to the one or the other; compare e.g. Habe with Handhabe. With the root kap, Latin capio, some also connect Greek κώπη, ‘handle.’