Re: About the word "spinster"

On Fri, 17 Nov 2006, wugi wrote:

enough: who tells me [de] leer's antecedents?

Here are the explanations from Duden's etymological dictionary.

leer:

[mhG] lære, [ohG, oSax] lâri, [oEng] lære

German cognate: lesen ("pick up", "collect scattered things", "harvest
fruit", also "read"). After harvesting a corn field (which is not "lesen"
because it is not done by collecting scattered things), poor people could
walk through the field and pick up ("lesen") the remainders - such a field
is "leer".

ledig:

[mhG] ledic, [nl] ledig, leeg, [sv] ledig

German cognate: Glied (member, limb, joint). A person having
well-functioning limbs and joints is not hindered to go and do what he
wants. The Swedish word has still the more direct meaning.

Now I came to wonder if =1= could itself be false friends.
Dutch has another "-ledig" which derives from "het lid/pl. leden", the
member. It occurs in "volledig", complete ~ fully-membered, and which is
object of a semantic pun, as if meaning "full/empty".
Taking this "ledig" as the origin, you could explain a meaning of "free" as
< membered, at full disposal of one's members. But I doubt if in German you
could find the same members:-)

Yes, that's it.

--
Helmut Richter
.