Page:An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language.djvu/49

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MidHG. bereit, bereite, OHG. bireiti, ‘ready and willing, obliging; armed, ready’; comp. AS. gerœ̂de, rœ̂de, E. ready; Goth. garaids, ‘appointed,’ does not correspond exactly. The word may belong to the root discussed under reiten (comp. OHG. reita, ‘carriage’), with the orig. sense of ‘to equip with armour’; like fertig, it would thus mean properly ‘ready for a journey’; comp. OIr. ríadaim, ‘I am going on a journey,’ ríad, ‘practicable (of a route), passable.’ On account of the similarity in meaning comp. fertig.

Berg, m., ‘mountain,’ inherited from the OTeut. vocabulary; OHG. bërg, MidHG. bërc(g), m. Comp. AS. beorh(g), especially ‘barrow’ (called byrgels also), E. only in the deriv. ‘to bury’ (AS. byrgan), from *burgian; the Goth. form *bairga- is deduced from the deriv. bairgahei, ‘mountain range.’ The rules for the permutation of consonants demand a pre-Teut. bhérgho-; with this is connected Sans. bṛhant, ‘high’ (b from bh, because the aspiration at the beginning of the root was, on account of the following aspirate, necessarily lost); h is gh; Zend barezanh, ‘height,’ berezant, ‘high’; OIr. brigh, ‘mountain’ (ri, Sans. ṛ, might be compared with the ur of Burg), Armen. berj, ‘height,’ barjr, ‘high,’ W. and Armor. bre, ‘mountain, hill,’ W. bry, ‘high.’ Also the Kelt. proper names Brigiani and Brigantes, like the Teut. Burgunden, Burgundiones (lit. ‘monticulae’), and the name of the town Brigantia (Bregenz). Hence to the root bhergh belong the primary meanings ‘high, rising ground’ (OSlov. brěgŭ, ‘bank (of a river),’ is borrowed from G.); perhaps Burg is derived from this root, if it does not come from bergen. The attempt to connect Berg with Goth. fairguni and Hercynia, identical with the latter, must be abandoned. With zu Berge, ‘up, on end,’ comp. MidHG. ze tal, ‘down.’

bergen, vb., ‘to hide, recover (from shipwreck)’, from MidHG. bërgen, ‘to hide, secure,’ OHG. bërgan; comp. Goth. bairgan, gabairgan, ‘to keep, preserve,’ AS. beorgan, MidE. bergen, ‘to preserve, protect.’ There are other E. words with a different though allied meaning; AS. byrgan, E. to bury; AS. byrgels (OLG. burgisli), E. burials, burial. For a similar division of a primary meaning see under befehlen. The root berg, burg, pre-Teut. bhergh, bhṛgh, with the primary meaning ‘to lay somewhere for safe keeping,’ is found outside the Teut.

group only in OSlov. brêgą, ‘I take care (of), wait upon.’

Bericht, m., ‘intelligence, report,’ from MidHG. beriht, ‘report, instruction, reconciliation.’ Akin to recht.

Berkan, ‘a kind of cloth, fustian,’ from MidHG. barragân, barkân, from MidLat. barracânus (Fr. bouracan, Ital. baracane), E. barracan; comp. Barchent.

Berline, f., ‘coach,’ first occurs in ModHG., from the equiv. Fr. berline, f. (comp. Landauer), properly ‘a Berlin carriage.’

Bernstein, m., ‘amber’; bern is a LG. form for brenn, therefore properly Brennstein (combustible stone)?. The Teut.-Lat. word is glêsum, preserved in AS. glœ̂re, ‘amber, resin.’

Berserker, m., first occurs in ModHG., borrowed from the Scand. berserkr, lit. ‘bear-skin garment,’ then ‘a savage warrior who gets furious during the fight’; from OIc. ber-, ‘bear,’ serkr, ‘garment.’

bersten, ‘to burst, crack,’ from MidHG. brësten, OHG. brëstan, ‘to break, tear, burst,’ impersonal ‘to be wanting, lacking’; er for re is properly LG. and MidG.; comp. Du. bersten, AS. berstan, E. to burst. Comp. farther the Aryan root bhrest (cognate with the root of brechen), in OIr. brissim, ‘I break’ (ss from st).

-bert, Bert-, in proper names, from MidHG. bërht, OHG. bëraht, ‘shining’; comp. Goth. bairhts, AS. beorht, E. bright.

Bertram, m., ‘Spanish camomile or pellitory,’ based by popular etymology on the proper name Bertram (lit. ‘shining raven,’ see Rabe), and derived from bitron, for Lat.-Gr. pyrethron (πύρεθρον).

berüchtigt, ‘infamous, notorious,’ a partic. adj. from a weak vb. used even by Luther — berüchtigen, ‘to defame,’ for. which berüchten was the common form in the 16th and 17th cents. Comp. Gerücht, as well as anrüchig and ruchbar; all these words are cognate with rufen, and are derived, as is shown by the ch for f before t, from LG.

Beryll, m., ‘beryl,’ from MidHG. berille, barile, brille, m., formed from Lat.-Gr. berýllus; also brille, ‘spectacles’; see Brille, Perle. The Gr.-Lat. term is derived from Prak. vêlûriga, Sans. vaiḍûrya.

Besánmast, m., ‘mizzen-mast,’ Besánsegel, n., ‘mizzen-sail’, from Du. bezaan, ‘mast nearest the stern of a ship,’ which is connected with E. mizzen, Fr. mizaine, Ital.