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thaumasioteslast Saturday at 1:44 PM1 replyview on HN

> Funny that in English gift is a word but entirely different meaning.

In English it maintains its original Germanic meaning derived from the verb give.

The sense of "poison" in German comes from a euphemistic use of "gift". (Literally 'something given' but actually used to calque Greek "dosis", which also literally meant 'something given', but was used to mean 'dose [of medicine]'.)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gift#Etymology

Summing up, the reason gift is a word in English with an entirely different meaning from what it has in German is that everyone in Germany forgot what gift meant.

(The reason it's gift and not something more like yift is the Danelaw.)


Replies

tharkun__last Saturday at 4:47 PM

This is one of the reasons I like HN: Random knowledge transfer like this. Appreciated!

Also: in German Dosis is the word for dose.

    Die Dosis macht das Gift
(the dose makes the poison)