An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Kasten

by Friedrich Kluge

Kasten, masculine, ‘chest,’ from the equivalent Middle High German kaste, Old High German chasto, masculine; this word, which is at all events really Teutonic, is wanting in the rest of the Old Teutonic dialects Gothic *kasta, ‘receptacle,’ may be connected with kasa-, ‘vessel,’ so that the dental would be a derivative; yet kas signifies specially ‘an earthen vessel, pot’ (compare kasja, ‘potter’). This Gothic kas, moreover, became char in Old High German by the normal change of s into r; in the Modern High German literary speech it is now wanting, but it appears in Middle High German binen-kar, upon which Modern High German Bienenkorb is based.