Re: hound

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "dgkilday57" <dgkilday57@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> >
> > Try 'hunzen', now that you got your dictionaries open. It's supposedly from 'Hund', but AFAICS it's cognate with 'hunt'.
>
> Kluge s.v. <hunzen>:
>
> Ztw. nhd. zu Hund gebildet wie duzen, erzen, siezen zu du, Er, Sie, somit urspr. 'Hund nennen', dann 'jem. wie einen Hund behandeln'. So gehoert schwaeb. (ver)hundaasen 'miszhandeln' zum Scheltwort Hundaas. Daen. <hundse> stammt aus dem Nhd. Vgl. <verhunzen> [erst bei Causenmacher (Lpz. 1701) 62 "die Sache verhunzen"].
>
> This seems to be the majority view. Friedrich Blatz, _Nhd. Grammatik_, Bd. I, S. 711-2 (1900) has more details:
>
> Das Verbalsuffix -zen bildet Intensiva und Iterativa, ... dient daher auch zur Bezeichnung wiederholter Toene oder Laute, z.B. achzen (ach), ... siezen, duzen (mit du anreden) [auch mhd.], ihrzen [mhd. irzen]. ... Ob hunzen, verhunzen von Hund kommt oder slavischen Ursprungs ist, scheint zweifelhaft.
>
> This suffix goes back to OHG, e.g. <blecchazzen> 'blitzen', cf. MDu <blicken> 'glaenzen'; <trophezzen> 'distillare', cf. <tropho:n>, NHG <tropfen>; <chahhazzen> 'ridere' = OE <ceahhettan>; also OE has <cohhettan> 'tussitare' from *cohhian, cf. ME <coughen>, MDu <kuchen> 'to cough'. The suffix is Common WGmc at least.
>
> Several other scholars cite the possible Slavic source as Bohemian <huntowati> 'hunzen, zu Grunde richten, schlachten', though not all consider this plausible. Hardly anyone wants to derive <hunzen> from 'hunt'. It seems to me that a loanword might well have been paretymologized as a derivative of <Hund>, but without more digging I can say nothing about this <huntowati>.

F. Weigand & F. Schmitthenner, Dt. Wb. I:712 (1873):

hunzen = die Ehre abschneidend, spottend, scheltend behandeln ... Erst im 16. Jh., in welchem huntzen = durch Abschneiden kuerzen ["zuhuntzte ... Kleidung" (Mathesius, Sarepta Bl. 69{a}) = zu sehr gekuerzte], einscheinend kuerzen. Mit regelrechter Verschiebung des t zu z entlehnt aus boehm. huntovati, humtovati = verhunzen, aber huntowati eig. = schlachten.

A. de Cihac, Dict. d'etym. daco-romane I:134 (1879):

Ha^nt>uesc, i, vb., de'pe'cer, dilace'rer, de'membrer, de'chirer; -hant>, s., hant> de morta^ciune 'charogne'; cfr. c^ech. huntovati 'faire le me'tier de boucher', hunt 'grand morceau'; l'all. hunzen, aushunzen 'gourmander' est de la me^me source c^ech.

J.F. S^umavske'ho, C^esko-Nemecky slovnik 164 (1851):

Hunt, u 'Stuerzkarren; Knollen, groszes Stuekk; Klotz zu Schindeln; groszes Holzscheit'; --e'r^ 'Landfleischhauer, Steckviehhaendler; Verderber, Sudler'; ... --e'r^uju 'Landfleischhauer sein'.

Kluge seems to have been unaware of "zuhuntzte Kleidung"; this 16th-c. sense of <huntzen> can hardly come from 'Hund nennen'. However a loan from the Czech form <huntovati> should not have lost the second syllable; we have 15th-c. Ger. <hauf(e)nitz> 'howitzer' from Boh. <houfnice> 'stone-sling, catapult'. More likely Boh. <hunte'r^> was borrowed into early NHG as *Huntzer 'meat-cutter, butcher' and the verb <huntzen> was back-formed, literally 'to cut meat, butcher, hack to pieces, cut short' etc., figuratively 'to cut down to size, belittle, die Ehre abschneiden, spotten, schelten, schimpfen'.

I do not know the source of this Czech <hunt> 'piece, lump', etc.

DGK