An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Seide

by Friedrich Kluge

Seide, feminine, ‘silk,’ from the equivalent Middle High German sîde, Old High German sîda, feminine; derived from Middle Latin sêta, ‘silk,’ like Old High German chrîda, from Latin crêta. The d of the High German words must be explained by the soft mute of the Romance languages, appearing in Spanish, Provençal and North Italian seda and Italian seta, ‘silk’ (French soie), just as in Spanish greda, ‘chalk,’ compared with Italian creta (compare Seidel). Middle Latin sêta, crêta (ê closed; see Preis, Pein, Speise, and feiern), may have been borrowed about the 10th century. From Latin sêta (literally ‘bristle’) Old Irish síta is also derived. For the assumption that the Phœnician town of Sidon furnished both the material and the name Seide, or rather Latin sêta, there is no historic proof. In English another term is used, Anglo-Saxon seole, seoloc, English silk, to which the equivalent Old Icelandic silke, neuter, is allied. It is usually assumed that these latter terms come from the Latin, in which serîcus (Irish síric) means ‘of silk’; they must, however, especially since their forms can scarcely be deduced from the Latin, be more fittingly connected, like Old Slovenian šelkŭ, masculine, ‘silk,’ with an Eastern term; compare Mongolian sirgek, ‘silk.’ The Seres, from whom the Greeks obtained their term σηρικὸς (Latin sêricus), adjective, cannot, as an East Asiatic people, be regarded as the immediate source of the North European loan-words.