An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/sehen

by Friedrich Kluge

sehen, verb, ‘to see, look,’ from the equivalent Middle High German sëhen, Old High German sëhan; a common Teutonic verb, and in this sense peculiar to this group. Compare Gothic saihwan, Old Icelandic sjá, Anglo-Saxon seón (from *seohan), English to see, Dutch zien, Old Slovenian sëhan, ‘to see.’ The common Teutonic root sehw (with grammatical change segw, sew), from the pre-Teutonic seq, closely agrees in sound with the Aryan root seq, ‘to follow, purse, accompany’; compare Sanscrit sac, ‘to escort, promote,’ Greek ἕπεσθαι, ‘to follow,’ Latin sequi, Lithuanian sekti, ‘to follow’; the assumption that these words are primitively allied presents no difficulty (hence sehen is perhaps literally ‘to follow with the eyes’). The supposition that the term is connected with Latin secare, ‘to cut’ (Aryan root sek, ‘to penetrate’?), is untenable.