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Etymological Dictionary of Arabic
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miǧdāl مِجْدال , pl. maǧādīlᵘ 
ID … • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 15Jul2021
√ǦDL 
n. 
1 flagstone, ashlar; 2 adj., ↗ǧadal – WehrCowan1976. 
▪ The meaning of the term is specified in Lane ii 1865 as »oblong roofing-stone, of those which, placed side by side, form the roof of a subterranean passage, &c.«. The word seems to belong to the complex of *‘strength, firmness’ (see †[v6] in root entry ↗√ǦDL) which is a specialization from the basic *‘to twist tight, braid, plait’ ([v1] in ↗√ǦDL, ↗ǧadala).
▪ ¹miǧdāl ‘flagstone, ashlar’ is listed as a value in its own right for the simple reason that it is the only item from the *‘strength, firmness’ complex that has “survived” into MSA.
▪ It is not clear whether it is an inner-Ar formation or whether it has to be seen together with †miǧdal ‘stronghold, fortress’, likewise from *‘strength, firmness’ but perh. via Hbr migdāl ‘tower, stronghold’.
▪ …
 
Earliest attestations of ‘strength, firmness; stronghold, castle, tower’ and related values accord. to DHDA (as of 13Jul2021) (for attestations of other values see “root” entry ↗√ǦDL; for particular sub-values: ‘to twist; rope’ ↗ǧadala; ‘fighting, quarelling, disputing’ ↗ǧidāl; ‘rivulet; table, chart’ ↗ǧadwal):

529 ǧādil (674 ǧadīl, 791 ǧadl, ǧadil) ‘hard, strong, firm’
538 ǧaddala (642 ǧadala) ‘to knock s.o. down’; 600 taǧaddala ‘to fall down’, 600 ǧadīl ‘knocked down, thrown to earth’
539 ǧidāl ‘quarrelsome argument, fight’
544 miǧdal ‘stronghold, fortress’
545 ʔaǧdal ‘a kind of hawk’
616 ǧadal ‘vehemence, violence, in altercation or disputation or litigation, sharpness, acrimony in dispute’
 
▪ DRS 2 (1994) #GDL-1 Akk gidl- ‘cordon torsadé, cordelière’;1 Hbr gādal ‘tresser’, *gādil ‘tresse’; Aram gᵊdal ‘tresser’, gᵊdiltā ‘tresse’; Phlv gdyl ‘cordon’; Mand gdal ‘tresser’, gdalta ‘tresse, guirlande’; nSyr gʸädil ‘tresser’; Ar ǧadala ‘tresser une corde, la rendre solide en la tordant fortement’; Soq gadl ‘tresse’; Te gädlä ‘tresser les cheveux, coiffer’. – Ug gdl, Hbr gādōl ‘grand’, gādāl, Aram gᵊdal ‘être grand’; Mand *gdil ‘être exalté’; Ar ǧadala ‘être ferme, solide; jeter à terre, terrasser’, ǧādil ‘grand, adulte’, ǧādala ‘lutter, se quereller’; Soq gódil ‘être fort’; Gz gadala ‘être fort, l’emporter sur; tuer’, gadl ‘combat; exercice ascétique’, gadalā ‘cadavre, charogne’; Te gadälä, Tña Amh tägaddälä ‘lutter’; Amh gäddälä, *gällä ‘tuer’, gäla ‘corps’. – Ug mgdl, Hbr migdāl, Moab mgdlt (pl.), Aram migdᵊlā, Syr magdᵊlā, Ar miǧdal, LiḥAr Min mgdl ‘tour, château fort’. -2-3 […].
▪ …
 
▪ See above, section CONC.
▪ …
 
– 
For other values attached to the “root”, cf. ↗ǧadala (ǧadl), ↗ǧadal, and ↗ǧadwal (ǦDWL) as well as, for the whole picture, root entry ↗√ǦDL.
 
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