An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Seife

by Friedrich Kluge

Seife, feminine, ‘soap,’ from the equivalent Middle High German seife, Old High German seifa, feminine (Old High German also ‘resin’); compare Dutch zeep, Anglo-Saxon sâpe (hence Old Icelandic sápa), English soap; Gothic *saipjô is implied by Old High German seipfa (Suabian and Swiss Seipfe), and by the Finnish loan-word saippio. Old High German seifa, Anglo-Saxon sâp, ‘resin,’ might suggest the assumption that Seife belongs, like Anglo-Saxon sîpan, Middle High German sîfen, and Dutch zijpelen, ‘to trickle,’ to the Teutonic root sī̆p, to which Latin sébum, ‘tallow,’ is usually referred, But Pliny says that ‘soap’ (sâpo) was an invention of the Gauls, “Gallorum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis; fit ex sebo et cinere ... apud Germanos majore in usu viris quam feminis.”^[1] The Latin sâpo of Pliny, however, is, like its derivatives French savon, Italian sapona, none other than the Teutonic *saipô; perhaps soap (the Romans were not acquainted with it) may be regarded as a Teutonic invention. Yet it is remarkable that Pliny speaks of soap only as a “pomade for colouring the hair.” The term sâpo, ‘soap,’ was not frequently used in Latin until the 4th century. Another Teutonic word for soap is represented by English lather, Anglo-Saxon leáðor, Old Icelandic lauðr.

Annotations

The following annotations were added by a Wikisource user, and are not part of the original work.

1. "an invention of the Gauls for giving a reddish tint to the hair. This substance is prepared from tallow and ashes ... much used by the people of Germany, the men, in particular, more than the women" (Pliny the Elder, The Natural History)