Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ḤKR_1 ‘to wrong s.o., be obstinate, set apart and retain for o.s., hold back, hoard, monopolize’ ↗ḥakar (var. ḥukar)
▪ ḤKR_2 ‘ground rent, quitrent’ ↗ḥikr (var. ḥukr)
▪ ḤKR_3 ‘kitchen-garden, vegetable garden’ ↗ḥākūraẗ

Other values, now obsolete, include:

ḤKR_4 ‘drinking cup’: ^†ḥukr

From among the three main values that the root ḤKR, according to DRS, displays in Sem, at least one (DRS #3 = ḤKR_4 ‘drinking cup’) is absent from MSA (though attested in ClassAr and still figuring in Hava1899). For the rest of the semantic spectrum, DRS distinguishes two main notions: (#1) ‘to wrong s.o.; to hold back; to insist, be obstinate, hold obstinately back for o.s., hoard, monopolize’, and (#2) ‘rent, to let’. If DRS is right, the latter is without representative in Ar. It is true that ḥākūraẗ ‘vegetable garden’ (ḤKR_3) cannot count as such an Ar representative since it is a borrowing from Syr. But what about ḥikr (~ ḥukr) ‘ground rent, quitrent’ (ḤKR_2)? The LevAr and EgAr evidence shows that it is probably indeed closer to ‘to set apart and monopolize’ than to ‘rent, to let out’. Given this closeness, should one distinguish #1 and #2 at all? The only reason to do so seems to be the idea, found, e.g., in Klein1987, that Hbr ḥāḵar ‘to hire, let’ may be akin to Sem ŚKR ‘dto.’ and thus have an origin that is different from the homonymous ḥāḵar ‘to wrong s.o. (etc.)’.

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▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤKR-1 Hbr *ḥākar (?), Ar ḥakara ‘agir injustement envers qn; retenir’, ḥakira ‘s’obstiner’, ḥukraẗ ‘accaparement’; Mhr ḥəkūr, Jib ḥkɔr ‘tenir à l’écart’, Mhr šəḥkūr, Jib s̃əḥékər ‘être excédé’ – Mhr ḥəkūr ‘être hésitant’, – Jib aḥtékér ‘tout vouloir pour soi’. -2 Hbr JP ḥākar, TargAram ḥəkar ‘louer’, EmpAram ḥkr ‘loyer’. -3 Ar ḥakr, ḥukr ‘coupe en bois’.

▪ Fraenkel1886:189 thinks that the values ‘mieten (to hire)’ as well as ‘aufkaufen (to buy out)’ are borrowed, while »die echt arabische Bedeutung des Wortes (scheint) ‘ein wenig’ zu sein. Die ursprüngliche Bedeutung von حكر aber ist wohl ‘anhäufen’« (the genuinely Arabic meaning of the word seems to be ‘a little’. The original meaning of حكر, however, is probably ‘to pile up, hoard’).
▪ ḤKR_1: According to DRS, the inclusion of Hbr ḥākar among the cognates is doubtful. In Job 19:3, it is a hapax traditionally read tahkᵊrū (with h, not ḥ), which is often likened to Ar ^†hakara (HKR). A Ug ḥkr »est aussi un hapax, traduit par ‘abattre’ dans M. Dietrich & O. Loretz BI OR 23 (1966) 129 d’après l’Akk ḫakāru, voir sous ḪKR, mais serait plutôt lié à cette racine avec la valeur ‘détresse’ par De Moor & Margalit, voir TO II 39, n. 87, DUL 359.« – If we take away the Can items, we are left with Ar and the modSAr cognates.
▪ ḤKR_2: ḥikr ‘ground rent, quitrent’ may look as if it belonged to Hbr ḥākar ‘to hire, let’, etc. But DRS does not list any Ar item as cognate to the Hbr word. The authors rather consider a relation between the Hbr word and the Sem root KRY ‘louer; acheter’ (cf. Ar ↗kirāʔ ‘rent’). In contrast, Klein1987 thinks that Hbr ḥākar ‘to hire, let’ is probably related to the base ŚKR (Hbr śā̈ḵar ‘to hire, rent’, Phoen škr ‘to hire’, Ug škr ‘to let out on hire, let’¹ , Ar ↗šakara ‘to reward, thank’, Gz šekār ‘to hire’). – Therefore ḥikr ‘ground rent, quitrent’ is probably to be seen, as by ClassAr lexicographers, as dependent on ḤKR_1 in the specialized sense of ‘to set apart, hold back, monopolize’, cf. the meaning given for ClassAr in Lane as ‘what is enclosed of lands, or of lands and houses, or of lands and palm-trees etc., and debarred from others, so that they may not build upon it nor otherwise make use of it’ (cf. also EgAr ḥikr ‘land or property owned by the government and leased to a private tenant’ – BadawiHinds1986; cf. also EgAr LevAr ḥakkara ‘to prevent s.o. from building on a ground’– Hava1899).
▪ ḤKR_3 ḥākūraẗ ‘vegetable garden, kitchen-garden’: a borrowing from Syr with the original meaning of ‘piece of land retained and enclosed by its proprietor for sowing and planting trees’, belonging, ultimately, to the same (W?)Sem root *ḤKR ‘to set apart and retain (obstinately) for o.s.’ from which also the ḤKR_1 (and perhaps also the ḤKR_2) items are derived (without Syr mediation). The Syr cognate and the fact that ClassAr dictionaries identify the word as typical of the dialect of Syria support the assumption of a borrowing from Syr. – In contrast, Dolgopolsky2012#2571 does not assume a shift of meaning from an original *‘to set apart and hoard’ but reconstructs a CSem *ḤKR ‘field in cultivation’. The author puts this together not only with Sum agar (< Sem) ‘territoire irrigué’, but also with an IE *ag̑ro-s ‘field, field in cultivation’ (from which are oInd aǧra-ḥ ‘field, plain’, Grk agrós ‘field, farm’, Lat ager, Ge Acker, Engl acre ‘field’). According to Dolgopolsky, the Sem, IE (and Alt) forms go back to Nostr *XakER˅ ‘plain’ (in descendant langs: ‘field’).
▪ ḤKR_4: ḥukr ‘drinking cup; little of water’: still attested as such in Hava1899; without obvious relation to the other ḤKR items. Etymology obscure.

1. Tropper2008: < *śkr, ‘einen Mietling/Lohnarbeiter nehmen, dingen, mieten’, škr /šakīru / < *śakīru ‘Lohnarbeiter, Tagelöhner’.]

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ḥakar حَكَر , var. ḥukar

ID … • Sw – • BP … • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021

√ḤKR

adj.

hoarded – WehrCowan1979.

▪ From a (W?)Sem *ḤKR ‘to be obstinate; to hold back (for o.s.), hoard, monopolize; to wrong s.o., ill-treat o.’s people’.

▪ Hava1899 gives the meaning of ḥakar as ‘monopolised corn, goods’. – Cf. also other related items, now obsolete, given in the same dictionary: ^†ḥakara i (ḥakr), vb. I, ‘to wrong s.o., ill-treat o.’s people’; ^†ḥakira a (ḥakar) ‘to be obstinate, contentious; to monopolise (bi- goods)’; ^†ḥakr ‘wrongful behaviour’; ^†ḥakir ‘withholder of corn’; ^†ḥākara, vb. III, ‘to contend with s.o.’; ^†taḥakkara, vb. V, ‘to monopolise s.th. till it becomes scarce’.

▪ Accord. to DRS, the Hbr form given as a cognate here is doubtful.
▪ It seems difficult to decide which of the basic notions appearing in this items is the primary meaning: ‘to be obstinate’, ‘to wrong s.o., ill-treat’, or ‘to hold back (for o.s.), hoard’? One option could be: ‘to be obstinate’ > ‘to hold (obstinately) back (for o.s.), hoard’ > ‘to wrong s.o., ill-treat (by hoarding s.th. for o.s.)’. Another option could be to imagine a development of two senses (‘to be obstinate’ and ‘to wrong s.o.’) from one primary ‘to hold back’.
▪ Akin to DRS ḤKR#2 ‘rent, to let out’ (Hbr JP ḥākar, TargAram ḥəkar ‘to let’, EmpAram ḥkr ‘rent’)? The authors of DRS hold this item apart from ḤKR#1 because it may be related to Sem KRY ‘to let; to buy’ (cf. Ar ↗kirāʔ ‘rent’).² At first sight, Ar ↗ḥikr ‘ground rent, quitrent’, seems to be cognate of the DRS ḤKR#2 items on account of semantic proximity to ‘rent, to let’. However, as already seen by ClassAr lexicographers, ḥikr is more likely to depend on ḤKR_1 (in the sense of ‘to hold back for o.s., monopolize’), cf. the meaning given for ClassAr in Lane as ‘what is enclosed of lands, or of lands and houses, or of lands and palm-trees etc., and debarred from others, so that they may not build upon it nor otherwise make use of it’.³ Nevertheless, the overlapping between ‘to hold back’ and ‘to let’ may suggest to reconsider DRS’ decision to hold the two values/items apart.

2. In contrast, Klein1987 thinks that Hbr ḥākar ‘to hire, let’ is probably related to the base ŚKR (Hbr śā̈ḵar ‘to hire, rent’, Phoen škr ‘to hire’, Ug škr ‘to let out on hire, let’, Ar ↗šakara ‘to reward, thank’, Gz šekār ‘to hire’. For this, cf. also Tropper2008: Ug škr < *śkr, ‘einen Mietling/Lohnarbeiter nehmen, dingen, mieten’, škr /šakīru / < *śakīru ‘Lohnarbeiter, Tagelöhner’. 3. Cf. also EgAr ḥikr ‘land or property owned by the government and leased to a private tenant’ – BadawiHinds1986. – EgAr LevAr ḥakkara ‘to prevent s.o. from building on a ground’– Hava1899.

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► ĭḥtakara, vb. VIII, 1 to buy up, hoard and withhold, corner (a commodity); 2 to monopolize (a commercial article); to bare exclusive possession (of s.th.), hold a monopoly (over s.th.): t-stem (autobenef.) of obsol. ^†ḥakira (see above, section HIST).

► ḥukraẗ, n.f., 1 hoarding (of goods), (Hava1899: withholding of corn); 2 monopoly: n.un. (?).
► ^BP#4997ĭḥtikār, pl. -āt, n., 1 cornering, buying up, hoarding; 2 monopoly; 3 preferential position; supremacy, hegemony: vn. VIII | ~ tiǧāraẗ al-bunn, n., coffee-trade monopoly; ~ al-sukkar, n., sugar monopoly.
► ĭḥtikārī, adj., rapacious, grasping, greedy: nsb-adj., from vn. VIII (preceding item).

For other items of the root, cf. ↗ḤKR, ↗ḥikr, ↗ḥākūraẗ.

ḥikr حِكْر, var. ḥukr

√ḤKR

ground rent, quitrent – WehrCowan1979.

Probably belonging to the complex treated s.v. ↗ḥakar (ḤKR_1 ‘to wrong s.o., be obstinate, hold s.th. back, hoard, monopolize’ rather than to that of Can ḤKR ‘rent, to let’ (cf. DRS ḤKR#2 in section COGN of disambig. entry ↗ḤKR).

▪ …

▪ See DISC.

▪ The meaning ‘ground rent, quitrent’ lets look ḥikr as if it could be akin to Can items signifying ‘rent, to let’ (cf. DRS ḤKR#2: Hbr JP ḥākar, TargAram ḥəkar ‘to let’, EmpAram ḥkr ‘rent’). The evidence of EgAr ḥikr ‘land or property owned by the government and leased to a private tenant’ (BadawiHinds1986) and EgAr, LevAr ḥakkara ‘to prevent s.o. from building on a ground’ (Hava1899), however, may serve as an indication for that the word, etymologically, perhaps is closer to ‘to hold back, hoard’, i.e., one of the values of ḤKR_1 (‘to wrong s.o., be obstinate, hold s.th. back, hoard, monopolize’, value treated under ↗ḤKR and, particularly, ↗ḥakar).

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► ʔuǧrat al-ḥikr, n., ground rent, quitrent. For other items of the root, cf. ↗ḤKR, ↗ḥakar, ↗ḥākūraẗ.

ḥākūraẗ حاكُورة

√ḤKR

n.f.

small vegetable garden – WehrCowan1979.

▪ In itself a borrowing from Syr with the original meaning of ‘piece of land retained and enclosed by its proprietor for sowing and planting trees’, the word probably belongs, ultimately, to the same (W?)Sem root *ḤKR ‘to set apart and retain (obstinately) for o.s.’ from which also other Ar items are derived (these however without Syr mediation). Most prominent among the latter in MSA is probably ĭḥtakara ‘to monopolize, hold a monopoly’, from ^†ḥakira ‘to be obstinate, keep s.th. for o.s., not allowing anyone a share in it’ (cf. also ^†ḥakara ‘to act wrongfully’), see ↗ḥakar, ↗ḥikr, and ↗ḤKR.
▪ In contrast, Dolgopolsky2012 thinks that the source of Ar ḥākūraẗ, Syr *ḥakūrā ‘field’, goes back to a CSem *ḤKR ‘field in cultivation’. The author puts this together with Sum agar (< Sem) ‘territoire irrigué’ and forms in IE langs (< IE *ag̑ro-s ‘field, field in cultivation’) like oInd aǧra-ḥ ‘field, plain’, Grk agrós ‘field, farm’, Lat ager, Ge Acker, Engl acre ‘field’. According to Dolgopolsky, the Sem, IE (and Alt) forms go back to Nostr *XakER˅ ‘plain’ (in descendant langs: ‘field’)

▪ …

▪ Dolgopolsky2012#2571: Syr ḥkwrʔ /*ḥakūrā ?/ ‘field’, mHbr, JPA √ḤKR G ‘to lease, rent (a field, a plot of land)’, JEA √ḤKR G ‘to contract agricultural land as a tenant’.

▪ Both the Syr cognate and the fact that the ClassAr dictionaries identify the word as “of the dial. of Syria” (Lane) corroborate the assumption that ḥākūraẗ is borrowed from Syr.
▪ In contrast, Dolgopolsky2012#2571 thinks that Ar ḥākūraẗ ‘piece of land retained and enclosed by its proprietor for sowing and planting trees’ is from Syr ḥkwrʔ /*ḥakūrā ?/ ‘field’ < CSem *ḤKR ‘field in cultivation’. The author puts this together with Sum agar (< Sem) ‘territoire irrigué’ and forms in IE langs (< IE *ag̑ro-s ‘field, field in cultivation’) like oInd aǧra-ḥ ‘field, plain’, Grk agrós ‘field, farm’, Lat ager, Ge Acker, Engl acre ‘field’. According to Dolgopolsky, the Sem, IE (and Alt) forms go back to Nostr *XakER˅ ‘plain’ (in descendant langs: ‘field’).

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For other items of the root, cf. ↗ḤKR, ↗ḥakar, ↗ḥikr.

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