25

Is Fahrenheit a real word in German? Does it come from a concept or from a name?

Improve this question
2
  • 15
    "Erfahrenheit" is an old German word for "Erfahrung" (experience) that is not used any more. It is not related to Fahrenheit.
    – Takkat
    Dec 15, 2011 at 7:27
  • @Takkat, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary it is. See my answer for the link.
    – A. Donda
    Jul 20, 2015 at 18:11

8 Answers 8

Reset to default
33

The German physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was the eponym for the temperature scale still used today. This is an excerpt from his famous publication on the freezing point of water:

enter image description here

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit: Experimente und Beobachtungen über das Gefrieren des Wassers im Vacuum. Phil. Transact. London. Vol. XXXIII, 1724, S. 78–84

Improve this answer
50

As the other answers have already pointed out, "Fahrenheit" is simply the name of the physicist who invented that temperature scale.

However, since the German language makes good use of word compositions, one could try to construct something from its only possible parts, "Fahren" and "Heit".

"Fahren" is an infinitive form of a verb and can be translated to "to drive".

"Heit" is only used as a word suffix DE: link is in German only in Standard German, often describing a condition specified by its prefixed word. For example, "Schönheit" will describe the condition of being "schön", i.e. beautiful. You will find "-heit" mostly in conjunction with an adverb, sometimes also a noun, but not a verb such as "fahren". In English, a related suffix would be "-ness" (as in happiness) or "-hood" (as in childhood).

So no, even if you would decompose it syntactically, the word "Fahrenheit" wouldn't make much sense.

The closest nonsensical English translation would be something like "drive-hood" or "drive-ness".

If we want to know more about that family name, we'd have to turn to onomastics - something I don't have much experience with, so take everything said below with a large barrel of salt.

A quick search leads to a possible explanation:

Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit's family roots seem to be in the Hildesheim or Rostock area - both places in Northern Germany where variants of Low German were spoken.

In this light, "Fahren" could be derived from "varen", which could be Low German for "vor dem"DE, translated to "in front of the".

"Heit" might be an old or Low German spelling of "Heide"DE, which translates to "heath" or "moor".

So maybe the family lived at a place near a moor or heath, and that's where their name came from.

Improve this answer
2
  • 12
    +1 for driveness :D
    – Takkat
    Dec 15, 2011 at 10:02
  • To add to the excellent answer: Other connotation are "Gefahr" and "Fährnis" meaning "danger" or "adventure" and "Fahrendes Volk" meaning "wandering people"
    – TaW
    Mar 12, 2015 at 18:22
16

No, Fahrenheit is just a proper name - not even a very common in Germany. Daniel Fahrenheit was Prussian physicist who proposed the temperature scale in 1714. It's worth mentioning that the Celsius scala is the official one in Germany though.

The only meaning you'll find in a dictionary is - like in English - the Grad (degrees) Fahrenheit.

Improve this answer
4
  • 2
    +1 for mentioning Celsius (who was a Swede, by the way).
    – fzwo
    Dec 15, 2011 at 11:56
  • Thank you for your nice answer to the question about the word Fahrenheit which is just a proper noun in German. I am interested that Celsius was a Swede. Thank you again!
    – user5991
    Apr 9, 2014 at 19:39
  • 1
    Kind of ironic we Americans still use Fahrenheit when even the Germans themselves have long since abandoned it in favor of the clearly superior Celsius.
    – Dan
    May 31, 2017 at 19:56
  • @Dan In what way is Celsius superior? It is an equally arbitrary temperature scale whose only benefit is to easily tell when water will freeze or boil (but you can remember the corresponding Fahrenheit values and then this becomes a non-issue). The only temperature scale which is somewhat superior (if only slightly because still somewhat arbitrary) is the Kelvin scale.
    – Jan
    Aug 11, 2017 at 5:30
2

As others have pointed out, "Fahrenheit" is a proper name. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, that is

An abstract surname meaning literally "experience."

This suggests that the name is a short form of "Erfahrenheit" which would be more precisely translated as "the state of being experienced".

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    +1 for giving a reference, but without seeing that somewhere else I remain somewhat sceptical.
    – Carsten S
    Jan 22, 2016 at 9:53
  • 6
    As a German native speaker I contest that statement. You cannot shorten "Erfahrenheit" to "Fahrenheit". The "er-" in "erfahren" is essential. The "erfahren" in "Erfahrenheit" is an adjective meaning "experienced". "Fahren" alone is a verb meaning "to drive" or "to travel". The suffix "-heit" is not used with verbs, only with adjectives.
    – Tilman Schmidt
    Jan 29, 2017 at 16:32
1

Fahrenheit, Celsius, Réaumur and Kelvin were all physicists whose names have been used to name a temperature scale. None of these words has any meaning in German, except as their use in naming temperatures, like

Eis schmilzt bei null Grad Celsius oder 32 Grad Fahrenheit.

Any attempts to pull the word Fahrenheit apart and trying to give it any meaning based on the parts is nonsense.

Improve this answer
3
  • The answer by A. Donda shows it is not nonsense.
    – TecBrat
    Oct 19, 2015 at 14:58
  • 1
    You mean the quote from "Online Etymology" which describes itself as "Etymonline is a can-opener, an imaginary labyrinth with real minotaurs in it,"? There are references, and there are references.
    – gnasher729
    Jan 28, 2016 at 0:35
  • Some Doctor's names given to technical terminology fit so well, like Hertz: one beat per second--roughly the Ruhepuls. And Erfahrungswerte are the basis for the Fahrenheit-Skala. I wonder whether doctor's honours would count today as legal reason for renaming. For sure, such names could be those rare coincidences that are to be expected, and it would be more likely if a work related predisposition runs in the family, e.g. Messerschmitt or Smith (and Wesson) building weapons from metal. When titles where handed down for long, it might cause semantic drift, even. So "named for Mr X" is a cop out
    – vectory
    Nov 14, 2019 at 10:58
-2

Fahren means to drive and heit is a suffix that makes an adjective a noun.

E.g. schön=beautiful and schoenheit=beauty. So Fahrenheit means loosely interpreted the state of driving.

Improve this answer
2
  • 5
    but fahren is not an adjective. :-)
    – splattne
    Dec 6, 2012 at 8:40
  • Also the suffix -en of "fahren" would be dropped in the composition (as in "fahrbar") so the result would be "Fahrheit". (Which would still be a non-word.)
    – Tilman Schmidt
    Jan 29, 2017 at 16:39
-5

As stated before, the literal translation of "Fahren" being "to drive" and the suffix "heit" being "the state of" would literally give the direct translation as "Driver" (ex. the actress Minnie Driver)

Improve this answer
1
  • 2
    Not sure if this is not much closer to a comment than an answer. Also, I think the transition Fahrenheit → driver is too far-fetched.
    – Jan
    Oct 26, 2015 at 12:44
-5

I'd translate Fahrenheit as "homelessness." Fahren, to drive, or, loosely, to be "on the road." -heit, state of being. So, the state of being on the road, which, if considered as a permanent state, is not having a home.

Improve this answer
1
  • 3
    Is there any reference that shows that the word has been used with that meaning?
    – Carsten S
    Jan 22, 2016 at 9:51

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.