concEtymology still rather unclear, due to lack of Sem cognates and semantic variation within Ar ↗ḪLǦ. Nişanyan makes ḫalīǧ dependent on ḫaliǧa ‘to writhe (with pain, etc.)’ (ḪLǦ_1) while ClassAr lexicographers put it to ḫalaǧa ‘to drag, pull out, separate’ (ḪLǦ_2) and DRS hesitates to assign it to either of the two, preferring to list it as a value in its own right (ḪLǦ_3). In the first case, ḫalīǧ would be *‘the curved one’, likened to a person writhing from pain; in the second, the bay or gulf would be regarded as s.th. *‘diverted, branching off’; and in the third, it would remain without etymology.