Armbrust
German
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle High German armbrust (12th century, variants armbrost, armborst, armbrast, armbst), from Medieval Latin arbalista, from Late Latin arcuballista, from Latin arcus (“bow”) + ballista (“ancient military engine for hurling missiles”) (compare English arbalest); modified, possibly by folk etymology, but as Grimm notes, the German noun was neuter well into the early modern period which excludes direct interpretation as a compound Arm (“arm”) + Brust (“breast”).
The feminine gender became predominant in the 18th century, clearly motivated by popular etymology as a compound in -Brust, also made explicit in hyphenated spelling Arm-Brust. Gottsched (1748) suggested a derivation from Arm (“arm”) + Rüstung (“armament, armour”), in which he was followed by Boeheim (1890).
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]Armbrust f (genitive Armbrust, plural Armbrüste or Armbruste)
- crossbow, arbalest
- 1792, C. Meiners, L. I. Spittler, Neues Göttingisches Historisches Magazin, vol. 1, part 2, page 305:
- Zu den Waffen, die nicht allen Teutschen Völkern gemein, sondern nur gewissen Stämmen derselben eigenthümlich waren, gehörte die Armbrust.
- The crossbow was one of the weapons that were not common to all German peoples, but peculiar only to certain tribes.
Declension
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- German terms inherited from Middle High German
- German terms derived from Middle High German
- German terms derived from Medieval Latin
- German terms derived from Late Latin
- German terms derived from Latin
- German compound terms
- German 2-syllable words
- German terms with IPA pronunciation
- German terms with audio links
- Rhymes:German/ʊst
- Rhymes:German/ʊst/2 syllables
- German lemmas
- German nouns
- German feminine nouns
- German terms with quotations
- de:Weapons