An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Bett

by Friedrich Kluge

Bett, neuter, ‘bed,’ from the equivalent Middle High German bet, bette, Old High German beti, betti, neuter; com, Anglo-Saxon bedd, English bed, Gothic badi. For Modern High German Bett the form Beth is found in the 18th century (e.g., in Gessner), just as for Beet this word Bett is used popularly (and in Middle High German); compare Beet. The signification Beet (‘garden-bed’) makes the connection with the Latin root in fodio, ‘to bury,’ possible (compare Welsh bedd, ‘grave’; also Old Slovenian bodą, ‘I prick’); Gothic badi (Latin *fŏdium), might therefore have arisen from Aryan bhodhiom. The primary meaning was probably ‘an excavated spot’; the signification already common to the Teutonic group, ‘bed, lectus’ (akin to Old Swedish bœdhil, ‘nest’), may be elucidated by reference to the cave-dwellings of the Teutons (see Dung). In early times the bed was evidently dug like a niche in the sides of the subterranean dwellings. The meaning ‘bolster,’ common to Old Icelandic beðr and Finnish patja (borrowed from Gothic), does not, it is true, harmonise with this explanation.