Page:An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language.djvu/68

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E. brood. The dental is deriv.; brô, as the root-syllable, is discussed under Brühe; the primary root signified ‘to warm, heat.’ —

brüten, ‘to brood,’ from MidHG. brüeten, OHG. bruoten (Goth. *brôdjan); comp. AS. brêdan, E. to breed (with the further signification ‘to beget, bring up’). E. bird, AS. bridd, ‘the young of birds, little bird.’ are often incorrectly allied to brüten; AS. bridd would be in Goth. *bridi (plur. bridja), and consequently the connection of the E. word with HG. brüten (Goth. *brôdjan) becomes impossible. It is worth noticing that Du. broeijen, LG. brœjen, and ModHG. dial. brühen partake of the meaning of brüten. See brühen.

Bube, m., ‘box, lad, rogue, knave (at cards),’ from MidHG. buobe (MidLG. bóve), m., ‘boy, servant, disorderly person’ (OHG. *buobo and Goth. *bôba are wanting); a primit. Ger. word, undoubtedly of great antiquity, though unrecorded in the various OTeut. periods (yet note the proper names identical with it, OHG. Buobo, AS. Bôfa). Comp. MidDu. boeve, Du. boef (E. boy is probably based upon a diminutive *bôfig, *bôfing). ‘Young man, youth,’ is manifestly the orig. sense of the word; comp. Bav. bua, ‘lover,’ Swiss bua, ‘unmarried man.’ To this word MidE. babe, E. baby are related by gradation; also Swiss, bâbi, bœ̂bi (most frequently tokχebâbi, tittibâbi), ‘childish person’ (Zwingli — “Baben are effeminate, foolish youths”); akin to this is OHG. Babo, a proper name. The OTeut. words babo-bôbo are probably terms expressing endearment (comp. Ätti, Base, Muhme), since the same phonetic forms are also used similarly in other cases; comp. OSlov. baba, ‘grandmother’; further, Ital. babbéo, ‘ninny,’ Prov. babau, ‘fop’ (late Lat. baburrus, ‘foolish’), Ital. babbole, ‘childish tricks.’

Buch, n., ‘book, quire,’ from the equiv. MidHG. buoch, OHG. buoh, n. It differs in gender and declension in the various OTeut. dialects; Goth. bôka, f., and bôk, n., f., signify ‘letter (of the alphabet)’ in the sing., but ‘book, letter (epistle), document’ in the plur.; akin to OSax. bôk, ‘book,’ Du. boek, AS. bôk, f., equiv. to E. book. The sing. denoted orig., as in Goth., the single character, the plur. a combination of characters, ‘writing, type, book, letter’; comp. Goth. afstassais bôkôs, ‘writing of divorcement’; wadjabôkôs, ‘bond, handwriting’; frabauhta bôka, ‘deed of

sale.’ The plur. was probably made into a sing. at a later period, so that ModHG. Buch signified lit. ‘letters (of the alphabet).’ The OTeut. word, which even on the adoption of Roman characters was not supplanted by a borrowed word (see Brief, made its way, like the word Buche, into Slav. at an early period; comp. OSlov. buky, ‘beech, written character’ (plur. bukŭve, ‘book, epistle’). Buch was used in the earliest times for the runes scratched on the twigs of a fruit-tree (see reißen); hence it results from Tacitus (Germania, 10) that Buch (lit. ‘letter’) is connected with OHG. buohha, ‘beech.’ The same conclusion follows from the Ger. compound Buchstabe, which is based on an OTeut. word — OHG. buohstab, OSax. bôcstaf, AS. bôcstœf (but E. and Du. letter), OIc. bókstafr. Undoubtedly the Germans instinctively connect Buchstabe with Buch and not with Buche. As far as the form is concerned, we are not compelled to accept either as the only correct and primit. Teut. word; both are possible. Historical facts, however, lead us to regard Buchstabe as Buchenstab. With the term Buchenstab the early Germans intimately combined the idea of the rune scratched upon it, and constituting its chief value. Comp. the following word and Rune.

Buche, f., ‘beech, beech-tree,’ from the equiv. MidHG. buoche, OHG. buohha; AS. bôc-treów, with the collateral form bêce (from boeciae), E. beech. The form bôc has been preserved in E. buckmast, buckwheat; comp. OIc. bók, Goth. *bôka, ‘beech.’ The name of the tree is derived from pre-Teut.; according to Lat. fâgus, ‘beech,’ and Gr. φᾶγός, φηγός, its Europ. form would be bhâgos. The Gr. word signifies ‘edible oak.’ This difference between the Gr. word on the one hand and the Teut.-Lat. on the other has been explained “by the change of vegetation, the succession of an oak and a beech period”; “the Teutons and the Italians witnessed the transition of the oak period to the beech period, and while the Greeks retained φηγός in its orig. signification, the former transferred the name as a general term to the new forests which grew in their native wastes.” Comp. Eiche. Buche is properly ‘the tree with edible fruit’ (comp. Gr. φαγεῖν, ‘to eat,’ and φηγός), and hence perhaps the difference of meaning in Gr. may be explained from this general signification, so that the above hypothesis was not necessary.