An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Buch
Buch, neuter, ‘book, quire,’ from the equivalent Middle High German buoch, Old High German buoh, neuter. It differs in gender and declension in the various Old Teutonic dialects; Gothic bôka, feminine, and bôk, neuter, feminine, signify ‘letter (of the alphabet)’ in the singular, but ‘book, letter (epistle), document’ in the plural; akin to Old Saxon bôk, ‘book,’ Dutch boek, Anglo-Saxon bôk, feminine, equivalent to English book. The singular denoted originally, as in Gothic, the single character, the plural a combination of characters, ‘writing, type, book, letter’; compare Gothic afstassais bôkôs, ‘writing of divorcement’; wadjabôkôs, ‘bond, handwriting’; frabauhta bôka, ‘deed of sale.’ The plural was probably made into a singular at a later period, so that Modern High German Buch signified literally ‘letters (of the alphabet).’ The Old Teutonic word, which even on the adoption of Roman characters was not supplanted by a borrowed word (see Brief, made its way, like the word Buche, into Slavonic at an early period; compare Old Slovenian buky, ‘beech, written character’ (plural bukŭve, ‘book, epistle’). Buch was used in the earliest times for the runes scratched on the twigs of a fruit-tree (see reißen); hence it results from Tacitus (Germania, 10) that Buch (literally ‘letter’) is connected with Old High German buohha, ‘beech.’ The same conclusion follows from the German compound Buchstabe, which is based on an Old Teutonic word — Old High German buohstab, Old Saxon bôcstaf, Anglo-Saxon bôcstœf (but English and Dutch letter), Old Icelandic bókstafr. Undoubtedly the Germans instinctively connect Buchstabe with Buch and not with Buche. As far as the form is concerned, we are not compelled to accept either as the only correct and primitively Teutonic word; both are possible. Historical facts, however, lead us to regard Buchstabe as Buchenstab. With the term Buchenstab the early Germans intimately combined the idea of the rune scratched upon it, and constituting its chief value. Compare the following word and Rune.