1 treasure house; 2 money-box; 3 vault, safe; 4 treasury, treasury department (of an official agency), any office for the deposit and disbursement of funds; 5 locker, wardrobe, closet; 6 cupboard; 7 library – WehrCowan1979.
While the n. looks as if it were a nominal formation from the vb. ↗ḫazana, Jeffery thinks that »[i]t is fairly obvious that ḫazana is a denom. vb., and the word has been recognized by many Western scholars as a foreign borrowing.« Both Pers ganǧ ‘treasure’ and another etymology (akin to Hbr ḥōsän ʻtreasureʼ) have been discussed, but these are probably not tenable.
▪ Jeffery1938, 122-23: »The verb ḫazana does not occur in the Qurʔān, but besides ḫazānaẗ [sic!] (which occurs, however, only in the pl. form ḫazāʔinᵘ), we find a form ḫāzin ʻone who lays in storeʼ in xv, 22; and ḫazanaẗ ʻkeepersʼ in 39:71, 73; 40:52; 67:8. – It is fairly obvious that ḫazana is a denom. vb., and the word has been recognized by many Western scholars as a foreign borrowing.1
Its origin, however, is a little more difficult to determine. Hoffmann, ZDMG, xxxii, 760,2
suggested that we should find its origin in the [Pers] ganǧ. This ganǧ which BQ defines as zar va-gowharī keh dar zamīn dafn konand, is cognate with Skr gañǧa (= kīša), a ʻtreasuryʼ or ʻjewel roomʼ,3
and has been borrowed through the Aram gnzʔ; Syr [gazzā, from] *ganzā into Ar as ↗kanz. It seems hardly likely that by another line of borrowing, through say Hbr gᵊnāzīm4
or Mand גאזאנא5
it has come to form the Ar ḫazānaẗ. – Barth, Etymol. Stud, 51, makes the happier suggestion that it may be connected with the form that is behind the Hbr ḥosän ʻtreasureʼ.« ▪ Cf. ↗ḪZN, ↗ḫazana.