Carabiner etymology

[Tim Hall]

At work someone is correcting entries in a stock database. One such entry was decoded to be "Carabiner", originally rendered as "Carbine".

It's definitely a spring loaded hook device, not a short barreled fire arm, so Carabiner (or even Karabiner) is the way to go.  However a cursory bit of webbery shows many manufacturers refer to it as a "Carbine Hook".

Wiki-inaccurate says:

A carabiner or karabiner (/ˌkærəˈbiːnər/)[1] is a specialized type of shackle, a metal loop with a spring-loaded gate[2] used to quickly and reversibly connect components, most notably in safety-critical systems. The word is a shortened form of Karabinerhaken (or also short Karabiner), a German phrase for a "spring hook"[3]

Which is great.  But then goes on to say

used by a carbine rifleman, or carabinier, to attach his carabin to a belt or bandolier.

Which strikes me as a bit far fetched and doesn't gel with the German origin originally given. What sayeth the YACF massive?

[hubner]

OED, no mention of carbines.

karabiner, n.


Pronunciation:
 Hear pronunciation/karəˈbiːnə/
Forms:  Also carabiner, erroneous karibiner.

Etymology: Shortened form of German karabiner-haken spring-hook.

Mountaineering.

  A coupling device consisting of a metal oval or D-shaped link with a gate protected against accidental opening. Cf. krab n.

1932   Amer. Alpine Jrnl. 526 (caption)    Safety snap (carabiner).
1933   G. D. Abraham Mod. Mountaineering x. 182   Light pitons..are used and karibiners. The latter are special oval-shaped rings with a hinge or swivel somewhat like that found on the end of a watch chain.
1942   K. A. Henderson Amer. Alpine Club's Handbk. Amer. Mountaineering vi. 124   Snap-rings, sometimes called by their German name, karabiner, are used to fasten the rope to the piton. They come in both oval and pear-shaped form.
1946   J. E. Q. Barford Climbing in Brit. ii. 25   These are called karibiners in Germany..and consist of an oval steel ring with a spring loaded hinged link on one side.
1959   W. H. Murray Five Frontiers iv. 93   Round my waist I tied a loop of rope, clipped on a karabiner (a steel ring with a spring clip, used in rock-climbing).
1965   New Scientist 22 July 205/3   The karabiner is basically a hook which is closed by a pivoted arm that may or may not snap home on the latch.
1972   D. Haston In High Places i. 7   Oval metal snaplinks, called carabiners.
1973   C. Bonington Next Horizon xii. 169   A jerk—you drop three inches... But you're alive! The knot in the sling attached to the karabiner in your waist harness had jammed on the gate of the karabiner, and had then freed itself, letting you drop those few inches.

Anyone with a library card can log into the OED.

[T42]

Oh, I'd go with the "far-fetched" story.  After all, the French word auberge, although it might be taken to mean on the riverbank, actually derives from the German Herberge, which toddles down from Old High German and has nowt to do with rivers.

Carabiner also means medical student, almost.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/carabin

Or, as it says, corpse carrier.*  Not very appetizing with your spaghetti carabinara.


* Liechenträger zur Wache...

[Brucey]

I'd instinctively go with a French or German origin because most non-native climbing terminology entered the English language from French or (Swiss-) German as a result of Victorian era-onwards English gentlemen's alpine climbing obsession.  Third choice being Italian, for similar reasons.

The K spelling is a common mistake and is understandable if the word has a Germanic origin; the sound is a very hard 'C' and it sounds more like a K than a C to many English-speaking ears.    The 'er' ending, if original, again suggests a noun of Germanic origins, since this -er ending isn't so common in the other candidate languages.

So I reckon the OED has got it right. At least some if not all of the 'carbine-hook' entries on the internet will almost certainly have arisen through spellcheckitis.

cheers

[Cudzoziemiec]

German rifles sounds a likely origin to me, if only on the tenuous grounds that karabin, with the central a, is the Polish for rifle and that almost certainly came from German. So originally a German word for a hook used for clipping things to rifles. I'm now wondering when English dropped the central a.

[Tim Hall]

German rifles sounds a likely origin to me, if only on the tenuous grounds that karabin, with the central a, is the Polish for rifle and that almost certainly came from German. So originally a German word for a hook used for clipping things to rifles. I'm now wondering when English dropped the central a.

I'm hoping piling swivels, which in your case you have not got, play a part.

[hubner]

Does the German "Karabiner-haken" mean spring hook or carbine hook?

[Ham]

Whoever wrote that wrong description relating to carbines deserves to be fired.

[Ian H]

Climbers of my acquaintance called them 'crabs'. 

[Tim Hall]

Does the German "Karabiner-haken" mean spring hook or carbine hook?

A quick go with a couple of online translation sites give karabiner as the German for carbine and die Feder for spring. It also apparently means feather.

[Cudzoziemiec]

As in the well known German word beginning with Haken, which I won't mention cos Godwin etc.

[JennyB]

This sounds about right:

A carabiner is a metal loop equipped with a spring-loaded gate that will open quickly in order to disconnect the parts of a safety rig. The word comes from the German karabineerhaken  for “spring hook for a carbine,” and has been “translated” and shortened to English as carabiner.
A carabiner can only be opened manually by pushing the gate away from the loop.
A snap hook is very similar: it’s a hook with a spring opening, allowing for a cord or rope to enter the hook’s loop, but not leave it unless the spring is opened by using the thumb to pull down on a small knob.

https://henssgenhardware.com/snap-hook-vs-carabiner/

[nobby]

German rifles sounds a likely origin to me, if only on the tenuous grounds that karabin, with the central a, is the Polish for rifle and that almost certainly came from German. So originally a German word for a hook used for clipping things to rifles. I'm now wondering when English dropped the central a.

I'm hoping piling swivels, which in your case you have not got, play a part.

The Naming of Parts.

[citoyen]

Does the German "Karabiner-haken" mean spring hook or carbine hook?

A quick go with a couple of online translation sites give karabiner as the German for carbine and die Feder for spring. It also apparently means feather.

The title of the excellent Daniel Pennac novel La Fée Carabine has been translated as The Fairy Gunmother.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Does the German "Karabiner-haken" mean spring hook or carbine hook?

A quick go with a couple of online translation sites give karabiner as the German for carbine and die Feder for spring. It also apparently means feather.

The title of the excellent Daniel Pennac novel La Fée Carabine has been translated as The Fairy Gunmother.

A rare example of translation being able to improve on the original.

[citoyen]

A rare example of translation being able to improve on the original.

Indeed. And Pennac likes his wordplay, so I'm sure he would have appreciated it. Though his previous novel, Au Bonheur Des Ogres (after Zola's Au Bonheur Des Dames) was disappointingly translated as The Scapegoat, which is a rather boringly literal reference to what the story is about.

Anyway, to get back on topic, I only mentioned it by way of pointing out that carabine is a word in French too - and seems to have the same meaning as carbine in English. I have no idea how this relates to the etymology of carabiners. French for rifle is fusil, of course, from which we get fusiliers, but I don't think we have carabiniers in English, do we?

Although the Italians do have the carabinieri, who are probably more or less equivalent to our armed police divisions.

[hubner]

OED:

Etymology: Shortened form of German karabiner-haken spring-hook.

Maybe that needs updating. It reads like karabiner means spring and haken means hook.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Anyway, to get back on topic, I only mentioned it by way of pointing out that carabine is a word in French too - and seems to have the same meaning as carbine in English. I have no idea how this relates to the etymology of carabiners. French for rifle is fusil, of course, from which we get fusiliers, but I don't think we have carabiniers in English, do we?

Although the Italians do have the carabinieri, who are probably more or less equivalent to our armed police divisions.

According to Polish wikipedia, the origin of the word is French and its original meaning was 'a soldier equipped with a musket'. The meaning got transferred to the weapon and then from musket to rifle as firearm technology developed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

I'm now wondering about a link between 'a rifle' and 'to rifle (through items etc)'. Presumably they're linked via the rifling inside a rifle barrel.

[Brucey]

... the Italians do have the carabinieri….

this is believed to have come from the French 'Carabinier'.

cheers

[Brucey]

I'm now wondering about a link between 'a rifle' and 'to rifle (through items etc)'. Presumably they're linked via the rifling inside a rifle barrel.

that is absolutely the case. Prior to rifling all such weapons were 'muskets' etc. After rifling of barrels became common, older weapons were distinguished by being called 'smoothbore' weapons, eg 'smoothbore rifle' even though this is a contradiction in terms.

'Rifler' is old French and seems to have provided both meanings of 'rifle' in English.

cheers

[Lightning Phil]

Caribiners are used in climbing. Locking, spring and wire ones exist. Used for runners and belays etc. 

[Salvatore]

A Karabiner (German), carabineer (English), caribinieri (Italian),  carabinero (Spanish) were originally soldiers, often mounted, who carried carbines.

The  term has died out (with carbines no longer being used?) in all but Italian, but not before it was used in German to describe the clippy thing and adopted by alpinistes, after which it gained a new ease of life with a new meaning in other languages.

Carbine was originally derived from French. The etymology is 'doubtful', but some suggest that ultimately from scarabeus (scarab).


(Newcastle Courant - Saturday 06 April 1734)

It was still being used as late as the 1940s - "In a gun battle, one carabineer was shot dead and two others were wounded." (Gloucester Citizen - Friday 29 May 1942)

[pcolbeck]

Anyway, to get back on topic, I only mentioned it by way of pointing out that carabine is a word in French too - and seems to have the same meaning as carbine in English. I have no idea how this relates to the etymology of carabiners. French for rifle is fusil, of course, from which we get fusiliers, but I don't think we have carabiniers in English, do we?

We did have carabiniers:

The Carabiniers (6th Dragoon Guards)
Hampshire Carabiniers (yeomanry cavalry regiment)

[Salvatore]

German wikipedia has a quotation from 1616 describing "an iron loop with a hook and spring, to stop the barrel falling out" from a work entitled "Kriegskunst zu Prerd" (roughly "the art of war on horseback")

daran ein Schleiff von Eysen hat mit einem Häcklein, so ein Feder, umb daß, das Rohr, so er hinein hanget, ihm nicht kan herauß fallen

[citoyen]

It was still being used as late as the 1940s - "In a gun battle, one carabineer was shot dead and two others were wounded." (Gloucester Citizen - Friday 29 May 1942)

We did have carabiniers:

Well, there you go. I know nothing!

(with carbines no longer being used?)

I don't really know much about guns, but my understanding is that what we usually call 'assault rifles' are technically carbines.