An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Seife

by Friedrich Kluge

Seife, f., ‘soap,’ from the equiv. MidHG. seife, OHG. seifa, f. (OHG. also ‘resin’); comp. Du. zeep, AS. sâpe (hence OIc. sápa), E. soap; Goth. *saipjô is implied by OHG. seipfa (Suab. and Swiss Seipfe), and by the Finn. loan-word saippio. OHG. seifa, AS. sâp, ‘resin,’ might suggest the assumption that Seife belongs, like AS. sîpan, MidHG. sîfen, and Du. zijpelen, ‘to trickle,’ to the Teut. root sī̆p, to which Lat. 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.” The Lat. sâpo of Pliny, however, is, like its derivatives Fr. savon, Ital. sapona, none other than the Teut. *saipô; perhaps soap (the Romans were not acquainted with it) may be regarded as a Teut. 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 Lat. until the 4th cent. Another Teut. word for soap is represented by E. lather, AS. leáðor, OIc. lauðr.