An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Schiff

by Friedrich Kluge

Schiff, neuter, ‘ship,’ from the equivalent Middle High German schif, Old High German scif, scëf (genitive -ffes), neuter; a common Teutonic term; compare Gothic and Old Icelandic skip, neuter, Anglo-Saxon sčip, neuter, English ship, Dutch schip, Old Saxon scip. The Old High German word also signifies ‘vessel,’ being rendered in a gloss as equivalent to its derivative Old High German sciphî, ‘phiala’ (compare Kahn; English vessel in its double sense, borrowed from French vaisseau, ‘vessel (a utensil), ship,’ Greek σκαφίς, ‘bowl, skiff’). The Greek term with σκάφος, ‘boat, ship,’ cannot be allied to the Teutonic word, since the latter implies an Aryan i in the stem syllable. No certain etymological explanation can be given of Teutonic skipa-; the suspicion that the word was borrowed at a primitively period may not be unfounded, for there are only a very few nautical words possessed in common by several Aryan languages (compare Mast). From Old High German the word passed into Romance; compare Italian schifo, French esquif, ‘boat,’ to which is allied Old French esquiper, ‘to equip a ship,’ with a Low German p, Modern French équiper, ‘to equip, endow,’ which passed again into Teutonic.