Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ḤWR_1 ‘marked contrast between the white of the cornea and the black of the iris; virgins of paradise’ ↗ḥawar
▪ ḤWR_2 ‘(white) poplar’ ↗ḥaw(a)r
▪ ḤWR_3 ‘to return; to recede, decrease, diminish, be reduced; (caus.) to answer’ ↗ḥāra
▪ ḤWR_4 ‘quarter; lane, side street’ ↗ḥāraẗ
▪ ḤWR_5 ‘apostle’ ↗ḥawāriyy
▪ ḤWR_6 ‘axis, crucial point’ ↗miḥwar
▪ ḤWR_7 ‘to change, modify’ ↗ḥawwara
▪ ḤWR_8 ‘to roll out (dough)’ ↗ḥawwara
▪ ḤWR_9 ‘to talk, converse, have a dialogue’ ↗ḥāwara
▪ ḤWR_10 ‘cretaceous rock, chalk’ ↗ḥawwāraẗ
▪ ḤWR_11 ‘Hauran’ (mountainous plateau in SW Syria and N Jordan) ↗ḥawrān
▪ ḤWR_12 ‘oysters’ ↗maḥār
▪ ḤWR_13 ‘bark-tanned sheepskin, basil’ ↗ḥūr
Other values, now obsolete:
▪ ḤWR_14 ‘bottom (of a well, etc.)’: ^†ḥawr
▪ ḤWR_15 ‘intelligence, depth in penetration, discerning power’: ^†ḥawr
▪ ḤWR_16 ‘third star (the one next the body) of the three in the tail of Ursa Major [i.e. Alioth?]’: ^†ḥawar
▪ ḤWR_17 ‘young camel’ : ^†ḥuwār
▪ ḤWR_18 ‘fine flour’ : ^†ḥuwwārà
▪ ḤWR_19 ‘Jupiter’ : ^†al-ʔaḥwar

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘circle, to encircle, return to, go away from; to have a dialogue, entourage, disciples; discerning power; to decrease; marked contrast between black and white in a woman’s eye, fair skin; oyster shell’

▪ The root displays a strikingly varied spectrum of values. Some of these are obviously related to, or derived from, others, while the relation between many remains rather obscure. As often, a number of Arab lexicographers tend to derive the whole variety from only one basic meaning. The latest theory of this kind is that of Gabal2012 who assumes *‘hollowness together with roundness’ (taǧawwuf maʕa 'stidāraẗ, I:403) as the basic value (cf. scheme).

–

▪ Zammmit2002: Ar ḥāra ‘[ḤWR_3] to return; [ḤWR_9] to reply to in an argument’, [ḤWR_3, ḤWR_4] SAr ḥwr ‘to settle (tr. and intr.) in (a town).
▪ BAH2008 give the range of meanings for ClassAr as (corresponding item numbers as used in EtymArab added before the values): ‘[–] circle, to encircle, [ḤWR_3] to return to, go away from; [ḤWR_9] to have a dialogue, [ḤWR_5] entourage, disciples; [ḤWR_15] discerning power; [ḤWR_3] to decrease; [ḤWR_1] marked contrast between black and white in a woman’s eye, [ḤWR_13?] fair skin; [ḤWR_12] oyster shell’.
▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR: 1 Hbr *ḥāwar ‘être blanc’, TargSyr ḥᵊwar ‘blanchir’, EmpAram ḥwry, Ar ʔaḥwarᵘ, ḥawarwar ‘blanc’, iḥwarra ‘être très blanc’, ḥawira ‘être d’un noir et d’un blanc bien prononcés de manière à se faire ressortir réciproquement (se dit des couleurs de l’œil)’; ḥuwwārà ‘farine très blance, pain très blanc’, Hbr ḥorī ‘pain’. 2 Ar ḥayrà ‘nuit très noire’, DaṯAr ḥawīr ‘indigotier’, Mhr ḥōwər, Ḥrs ḥéwər, Jib ḥɔr, Soq ḥáhər, ḥawr, f. ḥáwroh ‘noir’, Mhr ḥəwīrūr, Ḥrs ḥewērōr, Jib ənḥírér ‘noircir, devenir noir’, ? Soq ḥaro, ḥeyroh ‘brouillard’. 3 Ar ḥāra ‘revenir, retourner’, ʔaḥāra ‘répondre’, Tham ḥr ‘retourner, revenir’, Ar ḥawāriyy ‘apôtre’; Gz ḥora, Tña ḥorä, Gaf (a)horä, Har ḥāra, Gur wärä ‘aller’; Gz ḥawāryā ‘voyageur, messager, apôtre’; Ar ḥāraẗ ‘quartier (d’une ville)’, ? SudAr ḥōr ‘mur circulaire non couvert’; Sab Qat ḥwr ‘établir, s’établier (dans une ville)’, ḥwr ‘résident, habitant, immigrant (dans une ville)’; Qat ‘ordonner, décréter’, Sab Min ḥwr ‘être mis en vigeur, être publié’, hḥr ‘décréter, ordonner’. 4 […]. 5 Ar ḥu/i/awār, Mhr Ḥrs ḥəwōr, Te ḥəwar : petit de chameau avant l’âge du sevrage, Sab ḥwry (pl.), Ḥaḍr ḥwrw (pl.), Min ḥr : sens incertain [Sab Ḥaḍr: animaux que l’on chasse; Min: totalement énigmatique]. 6 Ar ḥawar ‘taureau’; ? Amh awra ‘mâle (des animaux)’. 7 […]. 8 Ar ḥawwara ‘étendre la pâte avec le miḥwar (rouleau)’, EgAr ḥawwar ‘modifier’, miḥwar ‘axe’. 9 Ar ḥāwara ‘discuter’. 10 Ar ḥawr ‘profondeur’, ḥāʔir ‘dépression dans le sol, fond de citerne’, ? ‘maigre’. 11 Ar ḥūr ‘dommage, malheur’. 12 Ar maḥāraẗ ‘coquillage’. 13 EgAr ḥūr ‘peau de chevreau’.
▪ ḤWR_1 ‘white’: see DRS#ḤWR-1, above. – For ‘virgins of Paradise’, cf. also s.v. ↗ḥūriyyaẗ. – As specialisations and/or metaphorical derivations from this value, also ḤWR_2 ‘white poplar’, ḤWR_15 ^†‘discerning power’ (distinguishing white from black), ḤWR_16 (a star in Ursa Major’, because of its whiteness?), ḤWR_18 ‘fine (white) flour’, and ḤWR_19 ‘Jupiter’ (the white one) quite certainly belong here. – Ǧabal thinks the value depends on ḤWR_3 ‘to (re)turn’, see DISC below.
▪ ḤWR_2 ‘(white) poplar’ (ḥaw(a)r): ↗ḤWR_1.
▪ ḤWR_3 ‘to return; to recede, decrease, diminish, be reduced; (caus.) to answer’: see DRS#ḤWR-3, above. – Does also ^†raǧul ḥāʔir bāʔir ‘man in a defective and bad state, perishing, dying’ (Lane) belong here, or rather to ḤWR_14 (DRS#ḤWR-10) ^†‘depth, bottom (of a cistern)’? – »Comparaisons avec l’Eg: a) ḥn ‘marcher rapidement’ [also: ‘to retreat’, ThLAeg]« (Faulkner, Müller); b) »ḥry [ThLAeg: ḥrj ] ‘distant, lointain, être loin’« (Faulkner, Albright) – DRS (#ḤWR-3).
▪ ḤWR_4 ‘quarter; lane, side street’: Ar ḥāraẗ is often seen as belonging to ḤWR_3 ‘to return’, but there may also be connections with ḤYR or, via the latter, to ḤḌR. See DISC below and in entry ↗ḥāraẗ.
▪ ḤWR_5 ‘apostle’: cf. DRS#ḤWR-3 and entry ↗ḥawāriyy.
▪ ḤWR_6 ‘axis, crucial point’: seen as a value in its own right, but together with ‘to change, modify’ (ḤWR_7) and ‘to roll out (dough)’ (ḤWR_8) by DRS, see DRS#ḤWR-8, above. ClassAr dictionaries would search for cognates akin either to ‘to (re)turn’ (ḤWR_3) or to ‘white’ (ḤWR_1). See DISC below and in entry ↗miḥwar.
▪ ḤWR_7 ‘to change, modify’: according to DRS related to miḥwar ‘axis’ (ḤWR_6) and ‘to roll out (dough)’ (ḤWR_8); ultimately, perhaps, also to ‘to (re)turn’ (ḤWR_3).
▪ ḤWR_8 ‘to roll out (dough)’: according to DRS related to miḥwar ‘axis’ (ḤWR_6) and ‘to change, modify’ (ḤWR_7); ultimately, perhaps, also to ‘to (re)turn’ (ḤWR_3).
▪ ḤWR_9 ‘to talk, converse, have a dialogue’: cf. also ClassAr ^†ḥawīr, ḥawīraẗ (and several variants) ‘answer, reply’. Seen as an item in its own right in DRS, but perhaps dependent on ‘to (re)turn’ (ḤWR_3).
▪ ḤWR_10 ‘cretaceous rock, chalk’: cf. ḤWR_14? Cf. also ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’ (Lane), or the complex ‘(contrast between black and) white’ (ḤWR_1)?
▪ ḤWR_11 ‘Hauran’ (mountainous plateau in SW Syria and N Jordan): see DISC below and entry and ↗ḥawrān.
▪ ḤWR_12 ‘oysters’: see DISC below and entry ↗maḥār.
▪ ḤWR_13 ‘bark-tanned sheepskin, basil’: ^†ḥūr (DRS), var. ^†ḥawar (fuṣḥà): Lane reports that what »in the present day [is] pronounced ḥawr « and applied to ‘sheep-skin leather’, originally meant ‘red skins, with which [baskets of the kind called] silāl are covered; (pl. ḥūrān, ḥawarān) a hide dyed red; red skins […]; skins tanned without qaraẓ, thin white skins of which [receptacles of the kind called] ʔasfāṭ are made; prepared sheep-skins’. The item is identified as »EgAr« and listed as a value in its own right in DRS. See DISC below.
▪ ḤWR_14: ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’ (Lane): see DRS#ḤWR-10 above. – Does also ^†raǧul ḥāʔir bāʔir ‘man in a defective and bad state, perishing, dying’ (Lane) belong here, or rather to ḤWR_3 (DRS#ḤWR-3) ‘to return; to recede, decrease, diminish, be reduced’? Cf. also DRS#ḤWR-11 ḥūr ‘damage, mishap, malheur’?
▪ ḤWR_15: ḥawr ^†‘intelligence, depth in penetration, discerning power’ (Lane); cf. also ʔaḥwar ^†‘(pure, clear) intellect’. For possible cognates see DISC below.
▪ ḤWR_16: ḥawar ^†‘third star (the one next the body) of the three in the tail of Ursa Major [i.e. Alioth?]’ (Lane). For possible cognates see DISC below.
▪ ḤWR_17: ^†ḥuwār ‘young camel when just born, or until weaned; i.e. from the time of its birth until big and weaned’ (Lane): see DRS#ḤWR-5, above.
▪ ḤWR_18: ^†ḥuwwārà ‘fine flour’: grouped with ḤWR_1 ‘white’ in all sources.
▪ ḤWR_19: ^†al-ʔaḥwar ‘Jupiter’: ↗ḤWR_1.

▪ ḤWR_1: After the original meaning ‘white’ had been taken in Ar by ʔabyaḍ (probably denom. from ↗bayḍ ‘egg’), ʔaḥwar became restricted in use to poetry where it came to signify the black pupils or the black of the eyes in contrast to their white surroundings, hence also the eyes of a gazelle or a girl with black eyes – DRS (#ḤWR-1). – Ǧabal2012 (I: 404) thinks that the value ‘white’ is dependent on ‘to decrease’ [< ‘to turn (into s.th. worse)’], as whiteness is what appears on the uncovering of s.th. after it had disappeared from the surface (yataʔattà min al-inkišāf baʕd al-intiqāṣ min al-ẓāhir), an explanation that seems rather forced. – For the value ‘virgins of Paradise’ cf. also ClassAr ^†ʔaḥwarī ‘white, fair’ (of the people of the towns or villages)’ and ^†ḥawāriyyaẗ (var. ḥawarwaraẗ, ḥawrāʔᵘ) ‘white, fair woman; pl. ‑āt, women of the cities or towns’ (»so called by the Arabs of the desert because of their whiteness, or fairness, and cleanness«), or ‘women clear (white, fair) in complexion and skin’, or ‘women inhabitants of regions, districts, or tracts, of cities, towns, or villages, and of cultivated land’, or simply ‘women’ (»because of their whiteness, or fairness« – Lane). This interpretation would be an interesting overlapping of ḤWR_1 ‘(contrast between black and) white’ and the notion (ḤWR_4, in DRS seen together with ḤWR_3) of ‘settling down’ as appearing in SAr ḥwr ‘to settle (tr. and intr.) in (a town); resident, inhabitant (of a town)’ and Ar ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane (of a town, village)’. – For other etymologies of the value ‘virgins of Paradise’, cf. entry ↗ḥūriyyaẗ. – Huehnergard2011 reconstructs CentralSem *ḥwr ‘to be(come) white’. Kogan2008: Ar ʔaḥwariyy ‘white’, ḥawwara ‘to whiten’ are to be connected to ComAram *ḥwr ‘to be white’, unless they are Aramaisms.
▪ ḤWR_2: The value ‘(white) poplar’, not mentioned in DRS at all, is represented by Ar ḥawar, also (later?) pronounced ḥawr. In ClassAr, it means a ‘plane-tree’ in Syria, and ‘white poplar’ in Egypt (the value now lexicalized in WehrCowan1979), or a ‘certain kind of wood’, all called by this name because of the whiteness of the object designated.
▪ ḤWR_3: Albright1927:224 thinks that the »original sense [of ḥāra, yaḥūru ] was probably ‘to turn’, whence ‘turn away, depart’ and ‘return’.« Jabal2012 (I:403) suggests ‘hollowness together with roundness’ as the primary meaning of the root as a whole. Should there be some truth to this, then there might be a relation of this notion to Hbr ḥōr, ḥôr [√ḥr(r)] ‘hole’ (cf. ḤWR_11 ‘Ḥawrān’, below). – For the connection between ‘to return’ and ‘to recede’, cf. the ClassAr dictionaries, quoted in Lane, saying »(vn. ḥawr, ḥūr) he returned from a good state to a bad; you say, ḥāra baʕda mā kāna […], he returned from a good state after he had been in that state, or: ḥāra baʕda mā kāra […], he became in a state of defectiveness after he had been in a state of redundance; or it is from [the vb. I] ḥāra (vn. ḥawr), he untwisted (his turban); and means: he became in a bad state of affairs after he had been in a good state; ḥāra wa-bāra, he became in a defective and bad state. (vn. ḥawr, ḥūr, maḥāraẗ, maḥār) It decreased, became defective, deficient; he perished, or died; he/it became changed from one state, or condition, into another; it became converted into another thing.« – DRS (#ḤWR-11) distinguishes the notion ^†‘damage, mishap, malheur’ (ḥūr), which reminds of ‘to perish, die’, just mentioned in the quotation from Lane’s dictionary, as a value in its own right, without cognates. – The fact that Ar ḫāra (√ḪWR) means ‘to decline in force or vigour, grow weak, dwindle’, makes one suspect an overlapping with, influence on, or even contamination of, ḥāra in the sense of ‘to recede’, although this seems phonologically unlikely.
▪ ḤWR_4 ‘quarter, lane’: often, as also (partly) in DRS, seen as belonging to ḤWR_3 ‘to return’, but details of semantics remain unexplained here. Cf., e.g., also Albright who thinks (1927:224) that ḥāraẗ belongs to »‘to return’ (ḥāra, yaḥūru), a meaning developed in various ways. The original sense was probably ‘to turn’, whence ‘turn away, depart’ and ‘return’.« In contrast, BAH2008 list ‘circle, to encircle’ among the values the root ḤWR can take in ClassAr, which would allow for a rather plausible explanation of a quarter as *‘encircled (district), enclosure’. But except for SudAr ḥōr ‘uncovered circular wall’, this notion is not attested elsewhere. – Albright (ibid.) sees also Eg ḥry ‘to depart, be distant’ and ḥr.t ‘road’ as extra-Sem cognates pertaining to Ar ḥāraẗ and the vb. ḥāra as well as Gz ḥōra ‘to go, travel’. – Another etymology is suggested in DRS#ḤY R-1, where it is reported that earlier research connected (what possibly is) an Aram cognate, ultimately to √ḤḌR ‘to settle’. See ↗ḥāraẗ.
▪ ḤWR_5 ‘apostle’: in ClassAr dictionaries sometimes seen as akin to ḤWR_1 ‘white’ (apostles being the those working as ‘bleechers, white-washers’, or regarded as those with a ‘white’, i.e. pure, character, the virtuous ones, free from vices), sometimes as derived from ḤWR_9 ‘to discuss’ (‘those who discuss, debate’), and hence, or directly, from ḤWR_3 ‘to return’ (apostles as ‘those who return to you with a reply, answer your questions, comment on them’); BAH2008 posit also ‘(to en)circle’ as one of the values of ḤWR and therefore also can give ‘entourage’ (apostles = Jesus’s, later also others’, entourage). But cf. DRS: »En guèze [Gz], ḥawāryā est le mot ordinaire désignant le ‘messager’, l’‘envoyé’. Il apparaît déjà dans les inscriptions d’Axoum 2/11 et a désigné plus tard les ‘apôtres’ du Christ. Il est en relation avec le verbe [Gz] ḥora ‘aller’. Le verbe correspondant en arabe, [Ar] ḥāra, ne signifie pas ‘aller’ mais ‘revenir’. Nöldeke […] souligne cette différence, qui conduit à rattacher l’arabe ḥawāriyyūna ‘apôtres’ comme le faisait Ludolf […] à l’éthiopien. Une forme Sab hwry (avec h !) ‘? annoncer, proclamer’ […] semble devoir être rattachée à WRY« (DRS#ḤWR-3). – For further discussion and details, see ↗ḥawāriyy.
▪ ḤWR_6 ‘axis, crucial point’: In ClassAr, miḥwar means 1. a ‘pin of wood (or iron) on which the sheave of a pulley turns, iron [pin] that unites the bent piece of iron which is on each side of the sheave of a pulley, and in which it [the miḥwar ] is inserted, and the sheave itself’; as such, lexicographers derive it either from ‘to turn’ (ḤWR_3) or think »it is so called because, by its revolving, it is polished so that it becomes white« (Lane), in this way relating it to ‘white’ (ḤWR_1); 2. ‘wooden implement of the baker or maker of bread with which he expands the dough […] and makes it round, to put it into the hot ashes in which it is baked’; ClassAr lexicographers again argue that this tool is »so called because of its turning round upon the dough, as being likened to the miḥwar of the sheave of a pulley, and because of its roundness«, seeing it as an extended use of ‘axis’. However, DRS#ḤWR-8 puts together miḥwar ‘axis’ (ḤWR_6), EgAr ḥawwar ‘to change, modify’ (ḤWR_7), and ḥawwara ‘to roll out (dough)’ ḤWR_8, as interrelated. (Note that DRS regards ḤWR_7 as an item particular to EgAr, which is not the case in ClassAr dictionaries.) – Semantic relations are not really clear, but it seems rather unlikely a) that ‘axis’ and ‘baker’s instrument for rolling out the dough’ should have different origins, and b) that miḥwar should not be connected to ‘to (re)turn’.
▪ ḤWR_7 ‘to change, modify’: In DRS (#ḤWR-8) this notion is seen as specific of EgAr and forming one item together with ‘to roll out (dough)’ (ḤWR_8) and ‘axis, crucial point’ (ḤWR_6). For discussion, see preceding paragraph.
▪ ḤWR_8 ‘to roll out (dough)’: In DRS (#ḤWR-8) this notion is seen as forming one item together with ‘to change, modify’ (ḤWR_7) and ‘axis, crucial point’ (ḤWR_6). For discussion, see ḤWR_6.
▪ ḤWR_9 ‘to discuss’: seen as an item in its own right in DRS, but many ClassAr lexicographers consider it to be connected to ḤWR_3 ‘to return’, cf. Lane: ḥāwara ‑hū ‘he returned him answer for answer; held a dialogue, colloquy, conference, disputation, or debate, with him; or bandied words with him’.
▪ ḤWR_10 ‘cretaceous rock, chalk’: cf. ḤWR_14? ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’, hence, ^†baʕīd al‑ḥawr ‘intelligent; deep in penetration’ (Lane). Or so called after its whiteness and therefore rather akin to ḤWR_1 (like also ḥaw(a)r, the ‘white poplar’, ḤWR_2)?
▪ ḤWR_11 ‘Hauran’ (mountainous plateau in SW Syria and N Jordan): The item is not mentioned in DRS. According to BDB1906, the meaning of the name is unknown; conjectures are: »*‘black land’ (as basaltic region), supported by YemAr ḥawr ‘black’,¹ , and tokens of immigration from Yemen into Ḥaurān² ; ‘land of caves’ […] and ‘hollow’ […], but this is prob. from Hbr ḥōr, ḥôr [√ḥr(r)] ‘hole’, cf. Ar ḫawr ‘hollow’.«
▪ ḤWR_12 ‘oysters’: The word maḥāraẗ does not only mean ‘oyster’ (originally probably ‘mother-of-pearl shell; oyster-shell’) but until today is also a vn. of ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’. In ClassAr it is also a n.loc. and as such means ‘place that returns [like a circle], in which a return is made [to the point of commencement]’ (Lane), and is therefore also used to signify the ‘concha of the ear’. While these values thus seem to be akin to ḤWR_3 ‘to (re)turn’, the explanation, given by some other lexicographers, of maḥāraẗ as ‘the external, deep, and wide, cavity, around the ear-hole’ lets also think of a possible relation to ḤWR_14 ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’ (which in turn has perhaps to be seen together with the value ‘black’ as appearing in modSAr, cf. DRS#ḤWR-2), or with the ‘contrast between black and white’ as expressed by ḤWR_1. So, if ḤWR_12 in the meaning ‘oysters’ is not (as DRS seems to assume by listing it as a separate item) independent of other values of ḤWR, it may be either the *‘thing with the marked black-white contrast’ or the *‘thing that looks like a spiral’. – The value ^†‘side, region, quarter, tract, etc.’ has probably to be seen together with ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane’, see ḤWR_4, above. – Lane mentions also the meaning »‘thing resembling [the kind of vehicle called] hawdaǧ ’ (pronounced vulgarly maḥārraẗ), pl. āt, maḥāʔirᵘ, often applied in the present day to the ‘dorsers, panniers, oblong chests which are borne, one on either side, by a camel, and, with a small tent over them, compose a hawdaǧ ’, ‘[ornamented hawdaǧ called the] maḥmil [vulgarly pronounced maḥmal ] of the pilgrims [which is borne by a camel, but without a rider, and is regarded as the royal banner of the caravan; such as is described and figured in Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians ]’«. This value is difficult to relate to any of the other ḤWR values and remains obscure.
▪ ḤWR_13 ‘bark-tanned sheepskin, basil’: ^†ḥūr (EgAr, accord. to DRS), var. ^†ḥawar (fuṣḥà): Lane reports that what »in the present day [is] pronounced ḥawr « and applied to ‘sheep-skin leather’, originally meant ‘red skins, with which [baskets of the kind called] silāl are covered; (pl. ḥūrān, ḥawarān) a hide dyed red; red skins […]; skins tanned without qaraẓ, thin white skins of which [receptacles of the kind called] ʔasfāṭ are made; prepared sheep-skins’.
▪ ḤWR_14: Should ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’ be seen together with the value ‘black’ as appearing in modSAr (cf. DRS#ḤWR-2)? DRS is convinced that the latter cannot be connected to ḤWR_1 ‘white’ (or ‘sharp contrast between white and black’?) and that it is »not impossible« that it depends on a root base ḤR that has become homonymous with ḤWR. Also: »rapport avec ḤRR, ḤMR, ḤBR?« – From ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’ ClassAr dictionaries derive ḤWR_15 ^†‘intelligent; deep in penetration’ (Lane).
▪ ḤWR_15: In ClassAr dictionaries derived either from ḤWR_14, cf. entry ḥawr in Lane: ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’, »hence« (!) ^†baʕīd al‑ḥawr ‘intelligent; deep in penetration’, or from ḤWR_1 ‘contrast between white and black’, cf. ʔaḥwar ^†‘(pure, clear) intellect’ »like an eye so termed, of pure white and black«.
▪ ḤWR_16: ḥawar ^†‘third star (the one next the body) of the three in the tail of Ursa Major [i.e. Alioth?]’ (Lane).
▪ ḤWR_17: ^†ḥuwār ‘young camel when just born, or until weaned; i.e. from the time of its birth until big and weaned’ (Lane). Cognates in Sem, but unclear semantics and etymology.
▪ ḤWR_18: ^†ḥuwwārà ‘fine flour’: grouped with ḤWR_1 ‘white’ in all sources.
▪ ḤWR_19: ^†al-ʔaḥwar ‘Jupiter’: probably so called after its ‘whiteness’ or the sharp contrast between its whiteness and the surrounding black sky (ḤWR_1).

1. Maltzan ZMG 1874: 230; cf. also DRS #ḤWR-2. 2. Wetzst in De, Job 2:598; ZKW 1884: 120.

▪ Engl houri ↗ḥūr, ↗ḥawar.

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ḥār‑, ḥur‑ حار / حُرْـ , u (ḥawr , ḥuʔūr , ḥūr , maḥār , maḥāraẗ)

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

√ḤWR

vb., I

1 to return (ʔilà to). – 2 to recede, decrease, diminish, be reduced (ʔilà to) – WehrCowan1979.

▪ ‘to (re)turn’ is probably one of the earliest values attached to √ḤWR in Ar.
▪ A number of secondary values seem to be derived from this primary ‘to (re)turn’, among these perhaps also ‘circle, to enclose’. Details of derivation and attribution, however, are far from being clear in many cases.
▪ Evidence from Sem does not help much to remove etymological obscurity. What seem to be closer cognates are to be found in SSem only, not however without displaying a confusing variety of meanings here, too. While the primary value in Ar seems to be ‘to (re)turn’, in EthSem it is simply ‘to go’, and the SAr languages, together with SudAr dialect, add the notions of ‘to establish, to settle’ and ‘to order, decree’.
▪ The situation would be less complicated if ‘circle, to enclose’ (and hence ‘quarter, lane’) and the SAr values could be confirmed to be belong elsewhere (together with Aram words for ‘camp, encampment; citadel’). But this relation, too, is not secured. See ↗ḥāraẗ.
▪ An additional challenge lies in value [v2] ‘to recede, decrease, diminish, be reduced’. It is grouped here together with [v1] ‘to (re)turn’ under the assumption, shared with Arab lexicographers, that verbs of movement (rāḥa, ʕāda, etc.) in Ar often take on the meaning of ‘to become’ and indicate a change of condition.

▪ eC7 ḥāra u (to return, go back) Q 84:14 ʔinna-hū ẓanna ʔan lan yaḥūra ‘and he thinks that he would not return [to his Lord]’

▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR-3: Ar ḥāra ‘revenir, retourner’, ʔaḥāra ‘répondre’, Tham ḥr ‘retourner, revenir’, Ar ḥawāriyy ‘apôtre’; Gz ḥora, Tña ḥorä, Gaf (a)horä, Har ḥāra, Gur wärä ‘aller’; Gz ḥawāryā ‘voyageur, messager, apôtre’; Ar ḥāraẗ ‘quartier (d’une ville)’, ? SudAr ḥōr ‘mur circulaire non couvert’; Sab Qat ḥwr ‘établir, s’établier (dans une ville)’, ḥwr ‘résident, habitant, immigrant (dans une ville)’; Qat ‘ordonner, décréter’, Sab Min ḥwr ‘être mis en vigeur, être publié’, hḥr ‘décréter, ordonner’. – Outside Sem: »Comparaisons avec l’Eg: a) ḥn ‘marcher rapidement’ [also: ‘to retreat’, ThLAeg]« (Faulkner, Müller); b) »ḥry [ThLAeg: ḥrj ] ‘distant, lointain, être loin’« (Faulkner, Albright).
▪ Cohen1969 treats ḥāra almost as a variant of ↗rāḥa (√RWḤ) ‘to go, leave, depart’, which allows him to see the verb in relation not only (as in DRS) with Gz ḥora ‘to go, depart’, but also Akk âru, var. wâru (< (w)aʔāru) ‘to go, advance (against a person), to turn against a person, confront, oppose, attack’ (CAD),¹ arāḫu ‘to hasten, hurry, come quickly, promptly’ (CAD), and Hbr ʔāraḥ ‘to wander, journey, go’, ʔoraḥ ‘way, path’ (BDB). – Outside Sem: Eg ḥry ‘être loin, s’éloigner’, ḥr.t ‘chemin, levée’. (Berb) Tua tārait ‘gradin rocheux en pourtour’ à côté de īr ‘col, cou’; douteux. (Cush) Bed hirer ‘marcher (troupe), voyager, aller’, Ag Bil ḥarar ‘courir’.
▪ Ar ḥāraẗ ‘quarter; lane, side street’ is often (as also in DRS) seen as belonging to ‘to return’. But there may also be connections with ↗ḤYR or, via the latter, to ↗ḤḌR. See DISC below and in entry ↗ḥāraẗ.
▪ For ḥawāriyy ‘apostle’, grouped together with ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’ in DRS and many other places, cf. DISC below and entry ↗ḥawāriyy.
▪ Together with ḥawwara, vb. II, ‘to roll out (dough); to change, modify’, Ar miḥwar ‘axis, crucial point’ is seen as a value in its own right in DRS. But ClassAr dictionaries often treat these items as akin to ‘to (re)turn’ (sometimes also to ‘white’, ↗ḥawar). See DISC below and in entry ↗miḥwar.
▪ Ar ḥāwara, vb. III, ‘to talk, converse, have a dialogue’: cf. also ClassAr ^†ḥawīr, ḥawīraẗ (and several variants) ‘answer, reply’. Seen as an item in its own right in DRS, but perhaps dependent on ‘to (re)turn’. Cf. DISC below and entry ↗ḥāwara.
▪ The same holds for maḥār ‘oysters’. Seen as an item in its own right in DRS, but perhaps related to ḥāra. Cf. DISC below and entry ↗maḥār.
▪ Does also ^†raǧul ḥāʔir bāʔir ‘man in a defective and bad state, perishing, dying’ (Lane) belong here, or rather to ḤWR_14 (DRS#ḤWR-10) ^†‘depth, bottom (of a cistern)’? Cf. also DRS#ḤWR-11 ^†ḥūr ‘damage, mishap, malheur’? And: Are these items related to ḥāra [v2] ‘to recede, decrease, deminish, be reduced’?

1. Should one also add Akk (w)uʔuru ‘to send a person, a message’ here?

▪ Albright1927:224 thinks that the »original sense [of ḥāra, yaḥūru ] was probably ‘to turn’, whence ‘turn away, depart’ and ‘return’.« In contrast, Jabal2012 (I:403) suggests ‘hollowness together with roundness’ as the primary meaning of the root as a whole, regarding ‘to (re)turn’ as a secondary development (hollow, round > to make a circle, a turn > to return). Should there be some truth to this, then there might be a relation between this notion and Hbr ḥōr, ḥôr [√ḥr(r)] ‘hole’ (cf. ↗Ḥawrān, perhaps also ↗maḥār). Cohen1969, in his turn, relates ḥāra not only to other ḤWR items, but also to ↗rāḥa (√RWḤ), which fits very well, in terms of semantics, with the EthSem cognates of ḥāra, e.g. Gz ḥora ‘to go, depart’. From a merely semantic perspective, also his juxtaposition of ḥāra (and rāḥa) with Akk (w)âru ‘to go, advance (against s.o.), oppose, attack’and arāḫu ‘to hasten, hurry’as well as Hbr ʔāraḥ ‘to wander, journey, go’, ʔoraḥ ‘way, path’ seems not unplausible. But would that be possible phonologically?
▪ Evidence outside Sem does not bring much light into the question of the origin of ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’. Cohen1969 suggests parallels in Eg ḥry [ThLAeg: ḥrj ] ‘to be far, leave, distance o.s.’ (mentioned also in DRS as suggested by Faulkner and Albright) and ḥr.t ‘way, path, slope’, as well as in Bed and Ag Bil vb.s meaning ‘to walk, travel, go’ or ‘to run’. (Possible cognates in Berb Tua are mentioned but disqualified as »doubtful«.) According to DRS (#ḤWR-3), Faulkner and Müller see a possible connection also with Eg ḥn ‘to advance rapidly, march quickly’ [also: ‘to retreat’, ThLAeg]. But these are all highly speculative.
▪ For the relation between [v1] ‘to (re)turn’ and [v2] ‘to recede, decrease’, cf. the ClassAr dictionaries, quoted in Lane, saying »(vn. ḥawr, ḥūr) he returned from a good state to a bad; you say, ḥāra baʕda mā kāna […], he returned from a good state after he had been in that state, or: ḥāra baʕda mā kāra […], he became in a state of defectiveness after he had been in a state of redundance; or it is from [the vb. I] ḥāra (vn. ḥawr), he untwisted (his turban); and means: he became in a bad state of affairs after he had been in a good state; ḥāra wa-bāra, he became in a defective and bad state. (vn. ḥawr, ḥūr, maḥāraẗ, maḥār) It decreased, became defective, deficient; he perished, or died; he/it became changed from one state, or condition, into another; it became converted into another thing.« Convincing? – DRS (#ḤWR-11) distinguishes the notion of ^†‘damage, mishap, malheur’ (ḥūr), which reminds of ‘to perish, die’, just mentioned in the quotation from Lane’s dictionary, as a value in its own right, without cognates.³ – The fact that Ar ↗ḫāra (√ḪWR) means ‘to decline in force or vigour, grow weak, dwindle’, makes one suspect an overlapping of this item with, influence on, or even contamination of, ḥāra in the sense of ‘to recede’, although this seems phonologically unlikely.
▪ ClassAr dictionaries often treat ḥawwara, vb. II, ‘to roll out (dough); to change, modify’ as causative formations from ‘to (re)turn’,⁴ explaining the value ‘to roll out (dough)’ as *‘to make the instrument called miḥwar turn and return over a piece of dough’ (and in this way flatten it and roll it out) and ‘to change, modify’ as *‘to make s.th. return (in a condition or shape that is different from the one it was in, or had, when it was sent out, or left)’. The n.instr. miḥwar is interpreted as *‘the point around which s.th. turns’ (> ‘axis, crucial point’) and, in the context of bakery, as the tool that is *‘turned over’ the dough in order to roll it out. DRS seems to doubt in these explanations and therefore groups miḥwar and ḥawwara as a value in its own right. See ↗miḥwar.
▪ ClassAr dictionaries connect also the vb. III ḥāwara ‘to talk, converse, have a dialogue’ [like vb. IV ʔaḥāra (ǧawāban) ‘to return (an answer), reply’] with vb. I ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’. Cf. also ClassAr ^†ḥawīr, ḥawīraẗ (and several variants) ‘answer, reply’. Again, DRS is sceptical about this interpretation and groups the corresponding items as a value distinct from ‘to return’. See ↗ḥāwara.
▪ Ar ḥāraẗ ‘quarter; lane, side street’ is often (as also in DRS) seen as belonging to ‘to (re)turn’. The exact semantic relation however remains unexplained ¬– a ḥāraẗ being a kind of enclosure with a dead end at which one has to turn, or from which one returns? – If ‘to (re)turn’ is (also) related to ‘depth, bottom’ (see above) one could also think of the dead end of a ḥāraẗ being likened to the bottom of a cistern. All doubtful and speculative. – ḥāraẗ may even have nothing to do with the root ḤWR at all but, rather, with ↗ḤYR or, via the latter (and Aram), with ↗ḤḌR. See DISC in entry ↗ḥāraẗ.
▪ DRS makes maḥār ‘oysters’ an entry in its own right. Some ClassAr lexicographers, however, say that the oyster is called maḥār after the spiral shape of it its shell whose windings *‘turn’ around a centre, or *‘return’ to where they started; maḥār, after all, is also the n.loc. of ḥāra meaning ^†‘place in which a return is made (to the point of commencement)’ (Lane). (For others, oysters are *‘the hollow ones’, those having a ‘cavity’, ↗Ḥawrān.) For discussion, see ↗maḥār.
▪ ḥawāriyy ‘apostle’ is grouped together with ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’ in DRS and many other places [in ClassAr dictionaries often interpreted as *‘s.o. who returns (after having been sent out with a message), sometimes also as *‘s.o. who discusses, or is in dialogue, with the people’], although it is, with all probability, not directly derived from ‘to (re)turn’ but borrowed from the Gz word for ‘apostle’, which is from Gz ḥ ‘to go’. For details cf. entry ↗ḥawāriyy.
▪ ḥūr, the ‘virgins of Paradise’, are usually regarded to be a pl. of ḥawrāʔᵘ, f. of ʔaḥwarᵘ ‘having eyes with a marked contrast between black and white’ (↗ḥawar). In ClassAr, there are however also words like ^†ḥawāriyyaẗ (var. ḥawarwaraẗ, and ḥawrāʔᵘ !), pl. āt, meaning ‘women inhabitants of regions, districts, or tracts, of cities, towns, or villages, and of cultivated land’ (who use to have a fair, ‘white’ complexion), so that it does not seem impossible to imagine the name for the virgins to derive from the notion of ‘settling down’ as it appears in SAr ḥwr ‘to settle (tr. and intr.) in (a town); resident, inhabitant (of a town)’, which probably is akin to Ar ↗ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane (of a town, village)’. – For a Pers etymology, cf. entry ↗ḥūriyyaẗ.
▪ While ‘having a white skin’ would thus be a function of ‘to settle down’ (↗ḥāraẗ), Ǧabal2012 (I: 404) thinks that the value ‘white’ (↗ḥawar) depends on ‘to decrease’ [< ‘to turn (into s.th. worse)’], as whiteness is what »appears on the uncovering of s.th. after it had disappeared from the surface« (yataʔattà min al-inkišāf baʕd al-intiqāṣ min al-ẓāhir), an explanation that seems rather forced but, on a closer look, may have a point.

3. Does also ^†raǧul ḥāʔir bāʔir ‘man in a defective and bad state, perishing, dying’ (Lane) belong here, or rather to ↗ḤWR_14 (= DRS#ḤWR-10) ^†‘depth, bottom (of a cistern)’? 4. …though sometimes also from ‘white’, ↗ḥawar.

–

► ʔaḥāra, vb. IV, (with ǧawāban) to answer, reply (with negations only): fig. use of caus.

Cf. perhaps also

► ḥawwara, vb. II, to change, alter, amend, transform, reorganise, remodel, modify (DO or min s.th.); to roll out (dough). – For other meanings cf. ↗ḥawar.
► ḥāwara, vb. III, to talk, converse, have a conversation (DO with s.o.); to discuss, debate, argue.
► taḥawwara, vb. V, to be altered, changed, amended, transformed, reorganized, remodeled, modified.
► taḥāwara, vb. VI, to carry on a discussion.
► ^BP#2379ḥāraẗ, pl. ‑āt, n., quarter, part, section (of a city); (Tun.) ghetto; lane, alley, side street (with occasional pl. ḥawārī).
► ʔaḥwarᵘ, f. ḥawrāʔᵘ, pl. ḥūr, adj., having eyes with a marked contrast of white and black, (also, said of the eye:) intensely white and deep-black.
► ḥawāriyy, pl. ‑ūn, n., disciple, apostle (of Jesus Christ); disciple, follower.
► ḥawrānᵘ, n.prop.loc., the Hauran, a mountainous plateau in SW Syria and N Jordan.
► ^BP#1645miḥwar, pl. maḥāwirᵘ, n., axis (math.); axle, axletree; pivot, crucial point, that upon which s.th. hinges or depends; rolling pin.
► maḥār, n.coll. (n.un. aẗ), oysters; shellfish, mussels; mother-of-pearl, nacre.
► taḥwir, n., alteration, change, transformation, reorganization, reshuffle, remodeling, modification.
► ^BP#439ḥiwār, n., talk, conversation, dialogue; argument, dispute; text (of a play); script, scenario (of a motion picture); libretto (of an opera).
► muḥāwaraẗ, n.f., talk, conversation, dialogue; argument, dispute.
► taḥāwur, n., discussion.
► muḥāwir, pl. ‑ūn, n., interlocutor, participant in a dialogue or conversation.

ḥawwar‑ حَوَّرَ , II (taḥwīr)

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

√ḤWR

vb., II

1 to change, alter, amend, transform, reorganise, remodel, modify (DO or min s.th.). – 2 to roll out (dough) – WehrCowan1979. – 3 For other values cf. ↗ḥawar

▪ The two values ‘to change, modify’ and ‘to roll out (dough)’ of ḥawwara are treated in DRS together with the n.instr. miḥwar ‘rolling pin; axis’ as one etymological unit, distinct from ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’. ClassAr lexicographers, however, connect vb. II usually with vb. I as the latter’s causative. But perhaps [v2] is denominative, from the ‘rolling pin’, while [v1] derives more directly, as a caus. formation, from ‘to turn’.

▪ …

▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR-8: Ar ḥawwara ‘étendre la pâte avec le miḥwar (rouleau)’, EgAr ḥawwar ‘modifier’, miḥwar ‘axe’.

▪ [v1] ‘to modify’ is classified as »EgAr« in DRS, but appears as a regular MSA item in WehrCowan1979. Has a dialectal usage become standard Ar here?
▪ DRS (s.v. #ḤWR-8) puts ḥawwara ‘to roll out (dough)’ and »EgAr« ḥawwar ‘to change, modify’ together with ↗miḥwar ‘rolling pin; axis’ as one etymological unit that is distinct from the vb. I ↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’ to which ClassAr dictionaries usually link these words.
▪ There can be no doubt that in the sense of ‘to roll out (dough)’, ḥawwara belongs to the ‘rolling pin’, miḥwar. The notion of ‘to change, modify’, however, may be either figurative use of ‘to roll out (dough)’ (and with every rolling ‘changing, modifying’ it), or a direct caus. formation from vb. I ↗ḥāra in the sense of ‘to come back (and be s.th. else), to turn (into s.th.)’, obviously a fig./extended use of the basic meaning, ‘to (re)turn’.

–

► taḥawwara, vb. V, to be altered, changed, amended, transformed, reorganized, remodeled, modified: t-stem of ḥawwara, intr./quasi-pass.
► taḥwīr, n., alteration, change, transformation, reorganization, reshuffle, remodeling, modification: vn. II.

Cf. also:
► ^BP#1645miḥwar, pl. maḥāwirᵘ, n., 1 axis (math.); axle, axletree; pivot, crucial point, that upon which s.th. hinges or depends; 2 rolling pin | duwal al-~, n.pl., (formerly) the Axis Powers (pol.): n.instr. from ↗ḥāra.
► miḥwarī, adj., axial (math., techn.): nsb-adj. from miḥwar.

ḥāwar‑ حاوَرَ , III (ḥiwār , muḥāwaraẗ)

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

√ḤWR

vb., III

to talk, converse, have a conversation (DO with s.o.); to discuss, debate, argue – WehrCowan1979.

▪ While DRS treats ‘to talk, converse, discuss, debate’ as a value in its own right, Arab lexicographers usually regard it as derived from ↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’, a conversation or discussion being an action where participants come back to each other with a reply.

▪ eC7 ḥāwara (to debate with, have a dialogue) 18:34 fa-qāla li-ṣāḥibi-hī wa-huwa yuḥāwiru-hū ʔanā ʔakṯaru min-ka mālan wa-ʔaʕazzu nafaran ‘so, he said to his friend, while disputing with him, “I am more than you in wealth, and mightier in respect of supporters.”’

▪ Cf. also ClassAr ^†ḥawīr, ḥawīraẗ (and several variants) ‘answer, reply’.
▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 9: Ar ḥāwara ‘discuter’ forms a value in its own right, treated distinctly from vb. IV ʔaḥāra ‘to answer, reply’ or vb. I ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’.

▪ ClassAr lexicographers consider the vb. III as dependent on vb. I ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’, cf. Lane: ḥāwara ‑hū ‘he returned him answer for answer; held a dialogue, colloquy, conference, disputation, or debate, with him; or bandied words with him’. In contrast, DRS distinguishes it as a value in its own right, without cognates in other Sem languages.
▪ The idea of ‘dialogue’ is probably peculiar to Ar, indeed. An analogous derivation seems to have taken place, however, in Gz where a word for ‘traveler’, ḥawāryā, is coined from Gz ḥora ‘to go’ and also comes to mean ‘messenger’ and, in a Christian context, ‘apostle’. ḥawāryā is believed to be the origin of the Ar word for ‘disciple, apostle’, ↗ḥawāriyy, often interpreted in ClassAr dictionaries as dependent on ḥāwara, the apostles being *‘those who enter into a dialogue with the people’.

–

► taḥāwara, vb. VI, to carry on a discussion: t-stem of III, recipr.

► ^BP#439ḥiwār, n., talk, conversation, dialogue; argument, dispute; text (of a play); script, scenario (of a motion picture); libretto (of an opera): lexicalized vn. III.
► muḥāwaraẗ, n.f., talk, conversation, dialogue; argument, dispute: vn. III.
► taḥāwur, n., discussion: vn. VI.
► muḥāwir, pl. ‑ūn, n., interlocutor, participant in a dialogue or conversation: PA III.

EgAr ḥūr , var. MSA ḥawar

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

√ḤWR

bark-tanned sheepskin, basil. – For other meanings cf. ↗ḥawar and ↗ḥaw(a)r . – WehrCowan1979.

▪ Within the whole ↗ḤWR complex, ḥawar, EgAr ḥūr in the sense of ‘bark-tanned sheepskin, basil’ stands rather isolated in terms of semantics. In MSA, the word can also mean ‘white poplar’ (↗ḥaw(a)r) and ‘marked contrast between the white of the cornea and the black of the iris’ (↗ḥawar), both going back to a word for ‘white’ (treated under ↗ḤWR_1 and ↗ḥawar). The pl.s of the variants mentioned in Lane’s lexicon (ḥūrān, ḥawarān) could, however, point in another direction, but it is not clear which that might be, the main values of ḤWR, besides ‘white’, being ‘black’, ‘to (re)turn’, and perhaps also ‘deep, hollow’.

▪ …

▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 13: EgAr ḥūr ‘peau de chevreau’ is listed as distinct item, without direct cognates.
▪ If the word nevertheless should be akin to ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’, one will have to confrom ↗ḥawar. – For the whole picture, see ↗ḤWR.
▪ Lane reports (s.v. ḥawar) that what »in the present day [is] pronounced ḥawr « and applied to ‘sheep-skin leather’, originally meant ‘red skins, with which [baskets of the kind called] silāl are covered; (pl. ḥūrān, ḥawarān) a hide dyed red; red skins […]; skins tanned without qaraẓ, thin white skins of which [receptacles of the kind called] ʔasfāṭ are made; prepared sheep-skins’.

▪ Although DRS lists the‘bark-tanned sheepskin, basil’ as a distinct item and gives the variant ḥūr as a dialectal word belonging to EgAr, the word is also found in fuṣḥà and still forms part of the MSA lexicon (as ḥawar or ḥawr). Lane reports that what »in the present day [is] pronounced ḥawr « and applied to ‘sheep-skin leather’, originally meant ‘red skins, with which [baskets of the kind called] silāl are covered; (pl. ḥūrān, ḥawarān) a hide dyed red; red skins […]; skins tanned without qaraẓ, thin white skins of which [receptacles of the kind called] ʔasfāṭ are made; prepared sheep-skins’. So, we have an oscillation in meaning between ‘(dark) red’ and ‘white’ here. The latter makes a relation of the word to the complex treated under ↗ḥawar ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’ rather likely. The pl. forms and the notion of ‘(dark) red’ however are apt to call such a connection into doubt. DRS may be right, therefore, to treat the word with caution.

–

ḥawar حَوَر

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

√ḤWR

marked contrast between the white of the cornea and the black of the iris. – For other meanings cf. ↗ḥaw(a)r and ↗ḥūr – WehrCowan1979.

▪ The fact that in mSAr some words belonging to ↗ḤWR actually denote ‘blackness’ and that in Ar, ḥawar means a marked contrast between black and white, can lead one to the assumption that it was this contrast that was the original value, ‘white’ and ‘black’ both being later specialisations. Most scholars, however, assume ‘white’ to be the more original value (and ‘black’ from a distinct origin?). On account of the Ar, Hbr and Aram evidence, Huehnergard2011 reconstructs CSem *ḥwr ‘to be(come) white’. Kogan2008 seems to be more reluctant: he does not exclude the possibility that the Ar forms meaning ‘white’ etc. may be Aramaisms (from ComAram *ḥwr ‘to be white’); if they are independent developments, however, Huehnergard’s hypothesis becomes operative. – In any case, we are dealing with a regional, not a general Sem phenomenon. The protSem designation for ‘white’ seems to have been *lbn (↗laban ‘milk’). In Ar, this has been replaced almost entirely by forms of the root ↗BYḌ (which is probably from ↗bayḍ ‘egg’). For ḤWR, the dominance of BYḌ meant (accord. to DRS) a restriction in use to poetry where it came to signify the black pupils or the black of the eyes in contrast to their white surroundings.
▪ Kogan2011: cf. common modSAr *ḥwr ‘black’.
▪ …

▪▪ …
▪ eC7 ḥūr ʕīn: For the Qur’anic ‘virgins of Paradise’ ), cf. entry ↗ḥūriyyaẗ.

▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 1 Hbr *ḥāwar ‘être blanc’, TargSyr ḥᵊwar ‘blanchir’, EmpAram ḥwry, Ar ʔaḥwarᵘ, ^†ḥawarwar ‘blanc’, ^†iḥwarra ‘être très blanc’, ^†ḥawira ‘être d’un noir et d’un blanc bien prononcés de manière à se faire ressortir réciproquement (se dit des couleurs de l’œil)’; ^†ḥuwwārà ‘farine très blance, pain très blanc’, Hbr ḥorī ‘pain’.
▪ As specialisations and/or metaphorical extensions from this value, also ↗ḥaw(a)r ‘(white) poplar’, ḥawar ^†‘third star (the one next the body) of the three in the tail of Ursa Major [i.e. Alioth?]’, ^†ḥuwwārà ‘fine flour’, perhaps also ^†ḥuwār ‘young camel when just born, or until weaned; i.e. from the time of its birth until big and weaned’, according to some even ḥawr ^†‘discerning power’ (distinguishing white from black) belong here. – For other etymologies of the ‘virgins of Paradise’, cf. entry ↗ḥūriyyaẗ. – Ǧabal thinks the value ‘white’ depends on ‘to (re)turn’; should there be some truth to this, one would have to look for cognates also in entry ↗ḥāra.
▪ Some ClassAr lexicographers regard also ḥawāriyy ‘apostle’ as belonging to ‘white’ (see DISC below), but this seems to be extremely unlikely. See also entry ↗ḥawāriyy.
▪ Other values that sometimes are derived from ‘white’ (but probably aren’t) are ‘cretaceous rock, chalk’ (↗ḥawwāraẗ, ḥuwwārà), ‘oysters’ (↗maḥār), and ‘bark-tanned kid, sheepskin, basil’ (↗ḥūr, var. ḥawar).

▪ Huehnergard2011 reconstructs CentralSem *ḥwr ‘to be(come) white’. Kogan2008 thinks that Ar ʔaḥwariyy ‘white’, ḥawwara ‘to whiten’ are to be connected to ComAram *ḥwr ‘to be white’, unless they are Aramaisms. – Ǧabal2012, I: 404, thinks that the value ‘white’ is dependent on ‘to decrease’ [< ‘to turn (into s.th. worse)’], as whiteness is what appears on the uncovering of s.th. after it had disappeared from the surface (yataʔattà min al-inkišāf baʕd al-intiqāṣ min al-ẓāhir), an explanation that seems rather forced.
▪ After the original meaning ‘white’ had been taken in Ar by ʔabyaḍ (probably denom. from ↗bayḍ ‘egg’), ʔaḥwar became restricted in use to poetry where it came to signify the black pupils or the black of the eyes in contrast to their white surroundings, hence also the eyes of a gazelle or a girl with black eyes – DRS#ḤWR-1.
▪ Both ClassAr ḥawar ^†‘third star (the one next the body) of the three in the tail of Ursa Major [i.e. Alioth?]’ (Lane) and ^†al-ʔaḥwar ‘Jupiter’ probably got their names after their ‘whiteness’ or the sharp contrast between their whiteness and the surrounding black sky.
▪ For the value ‘virgins of Paradise’ cf. also ClassAr ^†ʔaḥwarī ‘white, fair’ (of the people of the towns or villages)’ and ^†ḥawāriyyaẗ (var. ḥawarwaraẗ, ḥawrāʔᵘ) ‘white, fair woman; pl. āt, women of the cities or towns’ (»so called by the Arabs of the desert because of their whiteness, or fairness, and cleanness«), or ‘women clear (white, fair) in complexion and skin’, or ‘women inhabitants of regions, districts, or tracts, of cities, towns, or villages, and of cultivated land’, or simply ‘women’ (»because of their whiteness, or fairness« – Lane). This interpretation would be an interesting overlapping of ‘(contrast between black and) white’ and the notion, expressed in ḤWR_4 (and in DRS seen together with ḤWR_3), of ‘settling down’, as appearing in SAr ḥwr ‘to settle (tr. and intr.) in (a town); resident, inhabitant (of a town)’ and Ar ↗ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane (of a town, village)’. – For other etymologies of the ‘virgins of Paradise’, cf. entry ↗ḥūriyyaẗ.
▪ Fraenkel1886: ClassAr lexicographers derive ^†ḥuwwāriyy ‘fine flour’ from many things, but it goes “of course” back to Syr ḥewārā, Jud ḤYWWR ‘white’. The author thinks that »in the meaning ‘to be white’, the root is probably genuinely Ar«; however, some items may not be derived directly from the Ar ‘white’ but from Sem cognates.
▪ If ↗maḥāraẗ ‘oysters’ is not (as DRS seems to assume by listing it as a separate item) independent from other values of ↗ḤWR, it may be either the *‘thing with the marked black-white contrast’ or the *‘thing that looks like a spiral’ (↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’).
▪ According to some ClassAr lexicographers, also ḥawāriyy ‘apostle’ is derived from ‘white’, the apostles either being ‘(white)washers’ by profession or having a ‘white’ character, i.e., a pure, innocent soul, free from evil. But this seems to be a pious popular interpretation, see entry ↗ḥawāriyy.
▪ DRS is convinced that the value ‘white’ cannot be related to that of ‘black’ as appearing in modSAr (cf. DRS#ḤWR-2) and perhaps Ar ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’. See ↗ḤWR.
▪ ClassAr dictionaries are undecided over the question whether the expression ^†baʕīd al‑ḥawr ‘intelligent; deep in penetration’ should be derived from ‘contrast between white and black’ (cf. also ʔaḥwar ^†‘(pure, clear) intellect’ »like an eye so termed, of pure white and black« – Lane) or from ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’, »hence« ‘deep in penetration’. – We are perhaps dealing with an overlapping here: while ʔaḥwar, etymologically, belongs to ‘white’, ḥawr may be of different origin.
▪ Whether ḥūr, var. ḥawar ‘bark-tanned kid, sheepskin, basil’ and ^†ḥuwār ‘young camel when just born, or until weaned; i.e. from the time of its birth until big and weaned’ (Lane), are or are not related to ‘white’, will remain obscure until further evidence can be provided.

▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl houri, from Ar ḥūriyyaẗ ‘nymph, houri’, from ḥūr, pl. (also used as sg.) of ʔaḥwarᵘ, f. ḥawrāʔᵘ ‘characterized by the quality ḥawar, i.e., intense whiteness of the sclera of the eye in contrast to deep blackness of the iris’ (cf. ḥawira, vb. I, ‘to have this quality’). – (EtymOnline:) houri ‘nymph of Muslim paradise’, 1737, from Fr houri (1650s), from Pers ḥūrī ‘nymph in Paradise’, from Ar ḥawra [sic!] ‘to be beautifully dark-eyed’, like a gazelle + ‑i, Pers formative element denoting the sg. – EtymOnline.

► ^†ḥawira a (ḥawar), vb. I, to be shining white, be of intense white and black (eye), have such eyes, have delicate brows, together with a white complexion – Steingass1884: denom. (?).
► ḥawwara, vb. II, to make white, whiten; to bleach (a fabric): denom., caus.; for other values cf. ↗ḥawwara (‘to change, modify; to roll out dough’): caus., denom.
► ʔaḥwarᵘ, f. ḥawrāʔᵘ, pl. ḥūr, adj., having eyes with a marked contrast of white and black, (also, said of the eye:) intensely white and deep-black: elative formation.
► ḥūriyyaẗ, pl. ‑āt, ḥūr, n., houri, virgin of paradise: probably a nominalized (secondary, popular?) nsb-adj from ḥūr as the assumed pl.f. of ʔaḥwar, but cf. also ↗ḥūriyyaẗ; nymph: meaning extended on an idea from foreign mythology (?); (pl. ‑āt,) young locust:… | ḥūriyyaẗ al-māʔ, n., water nymph, nixie.

ḥawar حَوَر , also pronounced ḥawr (Steingass1884: also ḥawwar)

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

√ḤWR

white poplar. – For other meanings cf. ↗ḥawar and ↗ḥūr . – WehrCowan1979.

▪ …

▪ No direct cognates. For the (most probable) wider context, see ↗ḥawar ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’ and, for the whole picture, ↗ḤWR_1.

▪ The value ‘(white) poplar’ is not mentioned in DRS at all. Lane mentions it in the lemma ḥawar (s.v. ḤWR), saying: »‘a certain kind of tree’ : the people of Syria apply the name of ḥawr to the ‘plane-tree’ (dulb); but it is ḥawar [… In one source] it is said to be »‘a certain kind of tree of which the gum is called kahrabāʔ ’; by the modern Egyptians (pronounced ḥawr) applied to the ‘white poplar’ [= the value now lexicalized in WehrCowan1979]; ‘a certain kind of wood called al-bayḍāʔ [the white one] because of its whiteness’.«
▪ Since there are no direct cognates, and given the oscillation in pronunction between ḥawar and ḥawr, a definitive statement about the etymology of the term can not be made. If it depends on ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’, one will have to conform ↗ḥawar. For the whole picture, see ↗ḤWR.

–

ḥāraẗ حارة , pl. ‑āt

ID 243 • Sw – • BP 2379 • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021

√ḤWR

n.f.

quarter, part, section (of a city); (Tun.) ghetto; lane, alley, side street (with occasional pl. ḥawārī) – WehrCowan1979.

▪ Several etymologies have been put forward, but the case is far from being convincingly solved.
▪ The spectrum ranges from a relation to the vb. I ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’ (the quarter as a place with a dead end that forces one to return) over the notion of ‘circle’ (the quarter as an ‘encircled, enclosed’ place) and a correspondance with SAr words for ‘to settle, reside’ and/or ‘(en)camp(ment)’ to a derivation from a Copt (< Eg) word for ‘road, lane’ and/or ‘to depart, be distant’.

▪ …

▪ In DRS 9 (2010), Ar ḥāraẗ appears twice, in two different entries: on the one hand (s.v. #ḤWR-3), it is seen to be cognate with Ar ḥāra ‘to come back, return’, ʔaḥāra ‘to reply’, Tham ḥr ‘to return, come back’, Ar ḥawāriyy ‘apostle’; Gz ḥora, Tña ḥorä, Gaf (a)horä, Har ḥāra, Gur wärä ‘to go’; Gz ḥawāryā ‘traveler, messenger, apostle’; Ar ḥāraẗ ‘quarter (of a town)’, ? SudAr ḥōr ‘circulare, non-covered wall’; Sab Qat ḥwr ‘to build, to settle (in a town)’, ḥwr ² ‘resident, inhabitant, immigrant (in a city)’; Qat ‘to order, decree’, Sab Min ḥwr ‘to be put in operation, be published’, hḥr ‘to decree, order’. On the other hand (s.v. #ḤYR-1), the cognates are said to be Palm ḥyrh ‘citadel’, Syr ḥirtā ‘encampment’,³ Ar ḥayr ‘enclosure’, Sab ḥyr ‘to put up a camp’, ḥyrt, ḥrt ‘encampment’.⁴ )] Via an Aram connection, the word may even be akin to ↗ḤḌR, see DISC below.
▪ Youssef2003: Eg ḫ3rw , Copt ḥir ‘lane’ (ThLAeg: Eg ḫr, ḫ3rw ‘street, lane’).
▪ Albright1927: Eg ḥry ‘to depart, be distant’, ḥr.t ‘road’, Gz ḥōra ‘to go, travel’

2. According to Müller2010#ḤWR-2 the form is a plural.’ 3. PayneSmith1903: also ḥyārtā, ‘a shepherd’s camp; a mandra, convent’. 4. So also Müller2010 and Stein2012, s.v. ḤYR.

▪ Among the many etymologies that have been proposed so far, two seem to be quite convincing in terms of semantics:
▪ a) The first is the one that links ḥāraẗ to Aram words like Palm ḥyrh ‘citadel’, Syr ḥirtā ‘encampment’ (PayneSmith1903: also ḥyārtā, ‘a shepherd’s camp; a mandra, convent’), from which probably also Sab ḥyr ‘to put up a camp’ and ḥyrt, ḥrt ‘encampment’ derive. In this case, Ar ḥāraẗ would also be akin to Ar ↗ḥayr ‘fenced-in garden, enclosure’, which has to be seen together with the Aram and Sab words. According to DRS 9 (2010)#ḤYR-1, Syr ḥirtā »est traditionnellement rapporté à la racine ḤḌR (Ar ḥaḍr, Hbr ḥāṣer > Syr […]), supposant le passage (normal en Aram) de ḍ à ʕ, puis à Ø au contact de ḥ.⁵ « Should this be right, then Ar ḥāraẗ would go back, ultimately and via a “detour” taken through Syr or Sab, to ↗ḥaḍara ‘to be present; to stay in a place, settle’ (which shows some overlapping with ↗ḥaẓara ‘to fence in’, cf. also ḥaẓīraẗ ‘enclosure, hedge; compound, yard’, and perhaps also with ↗ḥaṣara ‘to surround, encircle, encompass; to enclose’). The original meaning here would be ‘place where one stays, of settling down, encampment’.
▪ b) The second suggestion that has semantic plausibility to it, is to relate Ar ḥāraẗ to Sab Qat ḥwr ‘to build, to settle (in a town)’, ḥwr (pl.) ‘residents, inhabitants, immigrants (in a city)’. DRS groups these (and Ar ḥāraẗ) together with SudAr ḥōr ‘uncovered circular wall’, a meaning that is not attested elsewhere but matches well with one of the values given by BAH2008 for the root ḤWR in ClassAr, namely ‘circle, to encircle’. Should these items be the nearest cognates of Ar ḥāraẗ, then a ‘quarter’ would originally be the *‘encircled district, enclosure (surrounded by a wall)’. Since most ClassAr dictionaries as well as DRS link the idea of a circle or encircling to the vb. Ar ḥāra ‘to come back, return’, one could go a step farther and assume that the idea of a quarter was built on that of a circle.
▪ But – are the connections, put up on purely semantic considerations, possible also phonologically? Details of derivation remain quite obscure in both cases. In option (a) above, the Ar word would have suffered the loss of a y, ī, or ay/ē and compensated this by a long ā, which would be rather exceptional. In option (b), a w, ū, or aw /ō would have changed into ā – not very likely either.
▪ Most ClassAr dictionaries and, partly, also DRS, relate ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane’ to the vb. I ḥāra ‘to return’. This is less problematic in phonological terms, but here details of semantics remain doubtful. The standard explanation is to interpret the quarter as a location with a dead end where one has to ‘turn’ and ‘return’ in order to get out.
▪ In contrast to the above hypotheses, Youssef2003 derives ḥāraẗ directly from Copt ḥir ‘lane’, from Eg ḫ3rw (ThLAeg: Eg ḫr, ḫ3rw) ‘street, lane’. Hoch1994#343 thinks that the Eg word »is almost certainly related« to Akk ḫarrānu ‘street, road’, for which one has to conform the BiblHbr n.pr.loc. ḥārān ‘The Road’ (a city in Northern Mesopotamia, located along the main trading route through the Aramean heartland) and Ug ḫrn ‘caravan’. To derive Ar ḥāraẗ from Copt ḥir is phonologically problematic, but should there be any direct relation between the Ar word and Eg ḫr, ḫ3rw, then ḥāraẗ would originally the ‘street, lane’ and, secondarily, ‘quarter’.
Albright1927 brings ‘road, lane’ and ‘to (re)turn’ together in juxtaposing Eg ḥr.t ‘road’, ḥry ‘to depart, be distant’ and Gz ḥōra ‘to go, travel’ as well as Ar ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane’ and ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’.

5. Discussion, with references, in Marrassini 1971: 92.

–

► ḥāraẗ al-sadd, n., blind alley, dead-end street

ḥūriyyaẗ حُوريّة , pl. ‑āt , ḥūr

ID 244 • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021

√ḤWR

n.f. (nominalized adj.)

houri, virgin of paradise; nymph; (pl. ‑āt) young locust – WehrCowan1979.

While Jeffery thinks that the name for the virgins of the Islamic Paradise is related to the mPers hurūst ‘beautiful’; that the idea itself reminds of the Zoroastrian teaching about the Daena (influenced by earlier Sem sources?); and that the loanword then came under the influence of Aram words for ‘white’, the current opinion among Arab lexicographers, but also e.g. in EI², is that the Qur’anic ḥūr is the pl. of ḥawrāʔᵘ, f. of the colour adj. ʔaḥwarᵘ ‘(contrast between black and) white.’ How ever that may be, what seems to be certain is that the sg. ḥūriyyaẗ is a secondary formation from the pl. ḥūr.

▪ eC6 ʕAbīd b. al-ʔAbraṣ (ed. Lyall, vii, 24): wa-ʔawānisu miṯla ’l-dumà | ḥūru ’l-ʕuyūni qad-i ’stabaynā ‘And maidens like ivory statues, white of eyes, did we capture’.
▪ eC7 ḥūr (pl.; ‘pure, fair-skinned’; also said to mean ‘having eyes marked by contrast between the deep black and the pure white in them; pleasant’) Q 44:54 ka-ḏālika wa-zawwaǧnā-hum bi-ḥūrin ʕīnin ‘so it will be, and We will wed them to wide-eyed houris’. – Cf. also Q 52:20, 55:72, 56:22.
▪ ḥūru ’l-ʕīn (applied to women) ‘having eyes like those of gazelles and of cows’, according to some only used when the whiteness of the eyes is combined with a whiteness, or fairness, of complexion – Lane.

▪ Usually seen as cognate with the complex treated s.v. ↗ḥawar ‘(marked contrast between black and surrounding) white’
. ▪ For a possible non-Sem origin (accord. to Jeffery), cf. DISC below.

▪ Jeffery1938, 117-20: »Except in [Q] 55:72, it is used always in the phrase ḥūr ʕīn. The occurrences are all in early Sūras describing the delights of Paradise, where the ḥūr ʕīn are beauteous maidens whom the faithful will have as spouses in the next life. – The Grammarians are agreed that ḥūr is a pl. of ḥawrāʔ and derived from ḥawira, a form of ḥāra, and would thus mean ‘the white ones’. ʕīn is a pl. of ʔaʕyanᵘ meaning ‘wide eyed’ (LA, xvii, 177). It thus becomes possible to take ḥūr ʕīn as two adjectives used as nouns meaning ‘white skinned, large eyed damsels’. The Lexicons insist that the peculiar sense of ḥawira is that it means the contrast of the black and white in the eye, particularly in the eye of a gazelle or a cow (cf. LA, v, 298; and TA, iii, 160). Some, however, insist equally on the whiteness of the body being the reference of the word, e.g. al-Azharī in TA, “a woman is not called ḥawrāʔ unless along with the whiteness of the eye there is whiteness of body.” One gathers from the discussion of the Lexicographers that they were somewhat uncertain as to the actual meaning of the word, and in fact both LA and TA quote the statement of so great an authority as al-Aṣmaʕī that he did not know what was the meaning of ḥūr as connected with the eye. – The Commentators give us no help with the word as they merely set forth the same material as we find in the Lexicons. They prefer the meaning which refers it to the eye as more suited to the Qurʔānic passages, and their general opinion is well summarized in as-Sijistānī, 117. – Fortunately, the use of the word can be illustrated from the old poetry, for it was apparently in quite common use in pre-Islamic Arabia. Thus in ʕAbīd b. al-ʔAbraṣ, vii, 24 (ed. Lyall) we find the verse wa-ʔawānisu miṯla 'l-dumà | ḥūru ’l-ʕuyūni qad-i ’stabaynā ‘And maidens like ivory statues,⁶ white of eyes, did we capture’, and again in ʕAdiyy b. Zayd: hayyaḥa ’l-dāʔa fī fuʔādika ḥūrun | nāʕimātun bi-ǧānibi ’l-malṭāṭi ‘They have touched your heart, these tender white maidens, beside the river bank’, and so in a verse of Qaʕnab in the Muḫtārāt, viii, 7, we read: wa-fī ’l-ḫudūri lawānu ’l-dāri ǧāmiʕatun | ḥūrun ʔawānisu fī ʔaṣwātihā ġinanū ‘And in the women’s chamber when the house is full, are white maidens with charming voices’. – In all these cases we are dealing with human women, and except in the verse of ʕAbīd the word ḥūr could quite well mean white-skinned, and even in the verse of ʕAbīd, the comparison with ivory statues would seem to lend point to al-Azharī’s statement that it is only used of the eyes when connected with whiteness of the skin. – Western scholars are in general agreed that the conception of the Houries of Paradise is one borrowed from outside sources, and the prevalent opinion is that the borrowing was from Persia. Sale suggested this in his Preliminary Discourse, but his reference to the Sadder Bundahišn was rather unfortunate, as Dozy pointed out,⁷ owing to the lateness of this work. Berthels, however, in his article “Die paradiesischen Jungfrauen im Islam”, in Islamica, 1: 263 ff., has argued convincingly that though Sale’s Ḥūrān-i Bihišt may not be called in as evidence, yet the characteristic features of the ḥūr of the Qurʔānic Paradise closely correspond with Zoroastrian teaching about the Daena. The question, however, is whether the name ḥūr is of Iranian origin. Berthels thinks not.⁸ Haug, however, suggested its equivalence with the Zoroastrian hūmat ‘good thought’ (cf. Av ?????; Skr suman); Av hūχt ‘good speech’ (cf. Av ?????, Skr sūkta), and Av hūvaršt ‘good deed’ (cf. Av ?????),⁹ but the equivalences are difficult, and as Horovitz, Paradies, 13, points out, they in no way fit in with the pre-Islamic use of ḥūr. Tisdall, Sources, 237 ff., claims that ḥūr is connected with the modern Pers ḫor ‘sun’, from Phlv χvar ¹⁰ and Av havarə,¹¹ but this comes no nearer to explaining the Qurʔānic word. – It is much more likely that the word comes from the Phlv hurūst, meaning ‘beautiful’, and used in the Pahlavi books of the beauteous damsels of Paradise, e.g. in Arda Virāf, iv, 18, and in Hādōχt Nask, ii, 23,¹² where we have the picture of a graceful damsel, white-armed, strong, with dazzling face and prominent breasts. Now, Phlv hurūst is a good Iranian word, the equivalent of Av hū raoδa,¹³ and though these Pahlavi works are late the conceptions in them are early and there can be no question of borrowing from the Sem. – To this Iranian conception we may now add the influence of the Aram ḤWR. Sprenger was doubtless right in his conjecture¹⁴ that the root Ar √ḤWR ‘to be white’ came to the Arabs from Aram. The Hbr ḥāwar occurs in Is. 29:22 in the sense of ‘becoming pale through shame’, and Syr ḥᵊwarā is commonly used to translate Grk leukós and is thus used for the white garments of the Saints in Rev. iii, 4. Carra de Vaux,¹⁵ indeed, has suggested that Muḥammad’s picture of the youths and maidens of Paradise was due to a misunderstanding of the angels in Christian miniatures or mosaics representing Paradise. This may or may not be so, but it does seem certain that the word ḥūr in its sense of ‘whiteness’, and used of ‘fair-skinned damsels’, came into use among the Northern Arabs as a borrowing from the Christian communities, and then Muḥammad, under the influence of the Iranian hurūst, used it of the maidens of Paradise.«
▪ Luxenberg2000: 221ff. interprets Qur’anic ḥūr as an Aramaism with the original meaning of ‘white (grapes)’.

6. So in al-ʔAʕšà we find ḥūrun ka-ʔamṯāli ’l-dumà, cf. Geyer, Zwei Gedichte, i, 196 = Dīwān, xxxiii, 11. 7. Het Islamisme, 3 ed., 1880: 101. 8. “Das Wort Ḥūr dürfen wir natürlich ebensowenig in den iranischen Sprachen suchen.” 9. The three words occur together in Pand-nāmak, xx, 12, 13. Cf. Nyberg, Glossar, 109, 110. 10. Horn, Grundriss, pp. 111, 112; Shikand, Glossary, 255. 11. Bartholomae, AIW, 1847; Reichelt, Awestisches Elementarbuch, 512; cf. Skr khar [sic!]. 12. See also Minoḫird, ii, 125-139, for the idea. 13. Bartholomae, AIW, 1836. 14. Leben, ii, 222. He thinks it may have come to the Arabs from the Nabataeans. 15. Art. “Djanna”, in EI, i, 1015

► ḥūriyyaẗ al-māʔ, n., water nymph, nixie.

ḥawwāraẗ حَوَّارة (ḥawāraẗ ?), also ḥuwwārà

√ḤWR

n.f.

cretaceous rock; chalk – WehrCowan1979.

Etymology not clear. May depend either on ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’ (↗ḥawar) or on ‘hollowness’ (cf. discussion in ↗ḤWR_14, ↗Ḥawrān, ↗maḥār).

▪ …

▪ No direct cognates. For the (most probable) wider context, see ↗ḥawar ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’ and, for the whole picture, ↗ḤWR.

▪ There is no certain etymology for ‘cretaceous rock, chalk’ yet. It may have been called ḥaw(w)āraẗ or ḥawwārà after its whiteness, or a contrast between its whiteness and a dark surrounding. In this case it would be dependent on ↗ḥawar. The root ḤWR shows, however, also a basic meaning of ‘hollowness’, not to be found in MSA any longer, but cf. ClassAr ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’, so that one could think of the cretaceous rock as the *‘hollow’ rock. A connection with ‘white’ seems more plausible, but there can be no final judgment on the matter.

–

ḥawāriyy حَوَارِيّ , pl. ‑ūn

√ḤWR

disciple, apostle (of Jesus Christ); disciple, follower – WehrCowan1979.

The word is most probably a loan from Ethiopic that dates from the so-called First Hijra (615-628 CE), when the Christian King of Aksum gave the Muslim refugees asylum. Many loans were made during this period, remarkably religious terms. The Gz term ḥawāryā ‘traveler, messenger, apostle’ is related to Gz ḥora ‘to go’, which is cognate to Ar ↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’.

▪ eC7 (disciples of Christ) Q 61:14 kamā qāla ʕīsà 'bnu maryama lil-ḥawāriyyīna man ʔanṣārī ʔilà ’ḷḷāhi qāla ’l-ḥawāriyyūna naḥnu ʔanṣāru ’ḷḷāhi ‘as Jesus, son of Mary, said to the disciples, “Who will come with me to help God?”, the disciples said, “We shall be God’s helpers”’. – Cf. also Q 3:52; 5:111, 112.

▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 3: Ar ḥāra ‘revenir, retourner’, ʔaḥāra ‘répondre’, Tham ḥr ‘retourner, revenir’, Ar ḥawāriyy ‘apôtre’; Gz ḥora, Tña ḥorä, Gaf (a)horä, Har ḥāra, Gur wärä ‘aller’; Gz ḥawāryā ‘voyageur, messager, apôtre’; Ar ḥāraẗ ‘quartier (d’une ville)’, ? SudAr ḥōr ‘mur circulaire non couvert’; Sab Qat ḥwr ‘établir, s’établier (dans une ville)’, ḥwr ‘résident, habitant, immigrant (dans une ville)’; Qat ‘ordonner, décréter’, Sab Min ḥwr ‘être mis en vigeur, être publié’, hḥr ‘décréter, ordonner’.

▪ Jeffery1938, 115-16: »It is used only of the disciples of Jesus and only in late Madinan passages. – as-Suyūṭī, Itq, 320, includes it in his list of foreign words, but in this he is quite exceptional.¹⁶ He says, “Ibn Abī Ḥātim quoted from al-Ḍaḥḥāk that ḥawāriyyūn means ‘washermen’ in Nabataean.”¹⁷ – Most of the Muslim authorities take it as a genuine Ar word either from √ḤWR [i.e. ↗ḥāra yaḥūru ] ‘to return’, or from ḥawira ‘to be glistening white’ [↗ḥawar ]. From the first derivation they get the meaning ‘disciples’ by saying that a disciple means a helper, and so ḥawāriyy means ‘one to whom one turns for help’ (cf. al-Thaʕlabī, Qiṣaṣ, 273). The other, however, is the more popular explanation, and the disciples are said to have been called ḥawāriyyūn because they were fullers whose profession was to clean clothes, or because they wore white clothing, or because of the purity of their inward life (cf. Baiḍ. on iii, 45; TA, iii, 161; LA, v, 299).¹⁸ – It was probably in this connection that there grew up the idea that the word was Aramaic, for [Aram] ḥăwar like Syr ḥəwar means ‘to become white’, both in a material and a spiritual sense. There can be no reasonable doubt, however, that the word is a borrowing from Abyssinia. The Eth [Gz] ḥawārəyā is the usual Eth translation of [Grk] apóstolos (cf. Mk. vi, 30). It is used for ‘messenger’ as early as the Aksum inscription (Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge, 48), and as early as Ludolf it was recognized as the origin of the Ar word.¹⁹ Dvořák, Fremdw, 64, thinks that it was one of the words that was learned by Muḥammad from the emigrants who returned from Abyssinia, but it is very possible that the word was current in Arabia before his day, for it occurs in a verse of al-Ḍābiʔ b. al-Ḥārith (Aṣmaʕīyāt, ed. Ahlwardt, p. 57) referring to the disciples of Christ.«
▪ Besides the association, mentioned by Jeffery, of the apostles with ‘fullers, white-washers’, ClassAr dictionaries sometimes also relate the ḥawāriyyīn in yet another way to ‘white’ (↗ḥawar), namely in the metaphorical sense of ‘those having a pure character, the virtuous ones, those who are free from vices’. Another common etymology is that the word is taken from ↗ḥāwara ‘to discuss’ (*‘those who discuss, debate’), and hence, or directly, from ↗ḥāra ‘to return’ (*‘those who come back to you with a reply’). BAH2008, who derive the word from the meaning ‘(to en)circle’ attached to ↗ḤWR, can regard the apostles as ‘entourage’ (the circle round Jesus, later also others’ entourage); so also Gabal2012: 405 who thinks that the ‘disciples’ most probably are called ḥawāriyyūn because they form a ‘circle’ around their master.²⁰ But cf. DRS (s.v. #ḤWR-3), along the lines of Jeffery: »En guèze [Gz], ḥawāryā est le mot ordinaire désignant le ‘messager’, l’‘envoyé’. Il apparaît déjà dans les inscriptions d’Axoum 2/11 et a désigné plus tard les ‘apôtres’ du Christ. Il est en relation avec le verbe [Gz] ḥora ‘aller’. Le verbe correspondant en arabe, [Ar] ḥāra, ne signifie pas ‘aller’ mais ‘revenir’. Nöldeke […] souligne cette différence, qui conduit à rattacher l’arabe ḥawāriyyūna ‘apôtres’ comme le faisait Ludolf […] à l’éthiopien. Une forme Sab hwry (avec h !) ‘? annoncer, proclamer’ […] semble devoir être rattachée à WRY«.
▪ EALL (Weninger, »Ethiopic Loanwords«) confirms: Ar ḥawāriyyūn ‘apostles’ was loaned from Gz ḥawārəyā ‘traveler, messenger, apostle’, during the First Hijra.
▪ Gabal2012 explicitly underlines that a foreign origin of this item cannot be supported. He also repeats the ClassAr theories that the name may derive from the ‘whiteness’ (↗ḥawar), i.e., purity, of the disciples’ heart. an idea that he dismisses since reports in the Bible describe them as fishermen, hunters, and doctors.

16. Also Mutaw, 59, and given by al-Khafājī in his supercommentary to Baiḍ. on iii, 45. 17. al-Alūsī, iii, 155, quotes the Nab. form as huwwārā. 18. Fraenkel1886:xxi, too, identifies Ar ḥawwārīn with Syr ḥWrīn, the ‘washers’. 19. So Fraenkel, Vocab, 24; Wellhausen, Reste, 232; Pautz, Offenbarung, 255, n.; Dvořák, Fremdw, 58; Wensinck, EI, ii, 292; Cheikho, Naṣrāniya, 189; Horovitz, KU, 108; Vollers, ZDMG, li, 293; Sacco, Credenze, 42. 20. The author assumes a basic value of ‘*hollowness together with roundness’ for the root, see ↗ḤWR.

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Ḥawrān حَوْران

√ḤWR

n.prop.loc.

the Hauran, a mountainous plateau in SW Syria and N Jordan – WehrCowan1979.

The etymology of the n.prop.loc. for a the very fertile basaltic region in SW Syria and N Jordan where grain and wine were/are cultivated, is still rather obscure. It may be related to the notion of ‘blackness’ or ‘hollowness’ that appears in a number of lexical items belonging to the root ḤWR. The name may however also go back to older Aram or Can words, as also the ‘hollowness’ of ḤWR may have be a borrowing and, ultimately, stem from ḪWR. Further investigation needed.

▪ …

▪ No obvious cognates. Following are some candidates for a possible relationship:

▪ ? DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 2: Ar ḥayrà ‘nuit très noire’, DaṯAr ḥawīr ‘indigotier’, Mhr ḥōwər, Ḥrs ḥéwər, Jib ḥɔr, Soq ḥáhər, ḥawr, f. ḥáwroh ‘noir’, Mhr ḥəwīrūr, Ḥrs ḥewērōr, Jib ənḥírér ‘noircir, devenir noir’, ? Soq ḥaro, ḥeyroh ‘brouillard’.
▪ ? DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 10: Ar ḥawr ‘profondeur’, ḥāʔir ‘dépression dans le sol, fond de citerne’, ? ‘maigre’.
▪ ? Steingass1884: ḥūrān, pl. of ḥāʔir, ‘place where water gathers’
▪ Ar ḫawr ‘low, or depressed, ground or land, between two elevated parts’ – Lane.

▪ The etymology of the name of the highly fertile, basaltic mountainous plateau in SW Syria and N Jordan that came into being as a result of volcanic activity, is still subject to speculation. The item is not mentioned in DRS at all. According to BDB1906, several conjectures have been made:

▪ One of these is that the name originally means *‘black land’, after the black basalt. This hypothesis is supported by the notion of ‘black’ attached to some items belonging to the root ḤWR, as given, e.g., in DRS #ḤWR-2. These seem to be mostly modSAr. The fact that the possible cognate ḥawr ‘black’, given in BDB on the authority of Maltzan,²¹ is qualified as YemAr would also point in a SAr direction. BDB1906 also reports that there are tokens of immigration from Yemen into Ḥaurān.²²
▪ Another meaning of the name, according to BDB1906, may be ‘land of caves’ (no Ar cognates mentioned).
▪ Yet another option is to connect it to the notion of ‘hollow’ which, according to Gabal2012, is one of the most basic meanings of the root, see ↗ḤWR. This value may also be contained in ↗maḥār ‘oyster(s)’.²³
▪ Accord. to BDB, ‘hollow’ may be akin to Hbr ḥōr, ḥôr ‘hole’ which, however, is not from ḤWR but, probably, from ḤRR.
▪ BDB also considers the possibility of connecting the Hbr name ḥawr ān to Ar ḫawr (with initial ḫ, not ḥ !), which, according to the authors, means ‘hollow’. In the dictionaries of Ar the writer of the present entry was able to consult, however, ḫawr has nowhere the meaning of ‘hollow’, it rather denotes ‘low, or depressed, ground or land, between two elevated parts’ (Lane), which would be a good description of the Ḥawrān plateau. With this meaning, Ar ḫawr overlaps to a certain degree with Ar ḥawr ‘depth, cavity’ and, even more so, Ar ḥāʔir ‘depressed place, place in which water collects, place in the ground depressed in the middle and having elevated edges or borders, in which is water, and hence: a garden’ (Lane, s.v. ḤYR). The latter item is still found, e.g., in Steingass1884 as ḥāʔir ‘place where water gathers’ where it is said to have the pl. ḥūrān (but ClassAr has also ḥīrān). This, too, fits very well with the description of the landscape, given in EI²,²⁴ as a place where »water from the many springs rising on the side of the massif «.
▪ As a note on the margin it should be said that the »low plateau (an average of 600 metres above sea-level) which forms the “heart” of the Ḥawrān [is] known as Nuqraẗ ‘hollow’«.²⁵

21. Maltzan ZMG 1874: 230. 22. Wetzst in De, Job 2:598; ZKW 1884: 120. 23. Others however derive maḥār from ↗ḥāra ‘to turn, return’ or ḥawar ‘(marked contrast between surrounding black and) white’. 24. D. Sourdel, art. “Ḥawrān”, in EI². 25. Ibid.

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miḥwar مِحْوَر , pl. maḥāwirᵘ

√ḤWR

1 axis (math.); axle, axletree; pivot, crucial point, that upon which s.th. hinges or depends. – 2 rolling pin

▪ Formed after the mifʕal pattern, miḥwar is originally a n.instr., designating a certain tool that turns or is turned round. [v2] ‘rolling pin’ seems thus to be closer to the original meaning than [v1] that means a point rather than a tool. The item is made dependent on ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’ by most ClassAr lexicographers, but seen as distinct from the latter in DRS.

▪ …

▪ ClassAr dictionaries would search for cognates akin either to ‘to (re)turn’ (↗ḥāra) or to ‘(contrast between surrounding black and) white’ (↗ḥawar).
▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 8: Ar ḥawwara ‘étendre la pâte avec le miḥwar (rouleau)’, EgAr ḥawwar ‘modifier’, miḥwar ‘axe’.

▪ As one would expect from its form, which follows one of the common n.instr. patterns, mifʕal, miḥwar in ClassAr means a tool, namely 1. a ‘pin of wood (or iron) on which the sheave of a pulley turns, iron [pin] that unites the bent piece of iron which is on each side of the sheave of a pulley, and in which it [the miḥwar ] is inserted, and the sheave itself’; as such, lexicographers derive it either from ↗ḥāra ‘to turn’ or think that »it is so called because, by its revolving, it is polished so that it becomes white« (Lane), in this way relating it to ‘(marked contrast between black and surrounding) white’ (↗ḥawar); 2. ‘wooden implement of the baker or maker of bread with which he expands the dough […] and makes it round, to put it into the hot ashes in which it is baked’; ClassAr lexicographers again argue that this tool is »so called because of its turning round upon the dough, as being likened to the miḥwar of the sheave of a pulley, and because of its roundness«, seeing it as an extended use of ‘axis’. – In contrast, DRS (s.v. #ḤWR-8) puts miḥwar ‘axis’ together with vb. II ↗ḥawwara ‘to change, modify;²⁶ to roll out (dough)’ and treats this group of items as a value distinct from ‘to (re)turn’ (ḥāra) as well as from ‘(contrast black/) white’ (ḥawar). – Semantic relations are not really clear, but for the writer of the present entry it seems rather unlikely a) that ‘axis’ and ‘baker’s instrument for rolling out the dough’ should have different origins, and b) that miḥwar should not be connected to ‘to (re)turn’.

26. According to DRS, this is EgAr only. But Wehr1979 lists it as a regular MSA item.

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duwal al-miḥwar, n.pl., (formerly) the Axis Powers (pol.)

► miḥwarī, adj., axial (math., techn.): nsb-adj.

Cf. also:
► ḥawwara, vb. II, 1 to change, alter, amend, transform, reorganise, remodel, modify (DO or min s.th.). 2 to roll out (dough). – For other meanings cf. ↗ḥawar.
► taḥawwara, vb. V, to be altered, changed, amended, transformed, reorganized, remodeled, modified: t-stem of ḥawwara, intr./quasi-pass.
► taḥwīr, n., alteration, change, transformation, reorganization, reshuffle, remodeling, modification: vn. II.

maḥār مَحار (n.un. ‑aẗ)

√ḤWR

n.coll. (n.un. ‑aẗ)

n.coll. (n.un. aẗ), oysters; shellfish, mussels; mother-of-pearl, nacre – WehrCowan1979.

▪ …

▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 12: Ar maḥāraẗ ‘coquillage’ is listed as distinct item, without any direct cognates in Sem or outside.
▪ But if it should nevertheless be akin to some other item(s) of ḤWR, the cognates will probably be found in the entries on ↗ḥawar ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’, ↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’, and ↗Ḥawrān. For the whole picture, cf. ↗ḤWR.

▪ The word maḥāraẗ does not only mean ‘oyster’ (originally probably ‘mother-of-pearl shell; oyster-shell ’) but until today is also a vn. of ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’. In ClassAr it is also a n.loc. and as such means ‘place that returns [like a circle], in which a return is made [to the point of commencement]’ (Lane), and is therefore also used to signify the ‘concha of the ear’. While these values thus seem to be akin to ↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’ (as also many others, cf. ↗ḤWR), the explanation, given by other lexicographers, of maḥāraẗ as ‘the external, deep, and wide, cavity, around the ear-hole’ lets also think of a possible relation to ḥawr in the sense, now obsolete, of ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’ (which in turn has perhaps to be seen together with the value ‘black’ as appearing in modSAr, cf. DRS#ḤWR-2, see entry ↗Ḥawrān), or with the ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’ as expressed in ↗ḥawar and derivatives. So, if maḥār in the meaning ‘oysters’ is not (as DRS seems to assume by listing it as a separate item) independent of other values of ḤWR, it may be either the *‘thing with the marked black-white contrast’ or the *‘thing that looks like a spiral’.
▪ The value, now obsolete, that maḥār (aẗ) could take in ClassAr in addition to that of ‘oysters’ and ‘place in which a return is made (to the point of commencement)’, namely ^†‘side, region, quarter, tract, etc.’ has probably to be seen together with ↗ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane’, see s.v.
▪ Lane mentions also the meaning »‘thing resembling [the kind of vehicle called] hawdaǧ ’ (pronounced vulgarly maḥārraẗ), pl. āt, maḥāʔirᵘ, often applied in the present day to the ‘dorsers, panniers, oblong chests which are borne, one on either side, by a camel, and, with a small tent over them, compose a hawdaǧ ’, ‘[ornamented hawdaǧ called the] maḥmil [vulgarly pronounced maḥmal ] of the pilgrims [which is borne by a camel, but without a rider, and is regarded as the royal banner of the caravan; such as is described and figured in Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians ]’«. This value is difficult to relate to any of the other ḤWR values and remains obscure.

–

► maḥāraẗ, n.un., oyster; oyster shell, mussel; trowel

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