Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ SḪR_1 ‘to scoff, mock, ridicule; masquerad; irony’ ↗saḫira
▪ SḪR_2 ‘to subject, make subservient, employ, utilize; forced labour, corvée’ ↗saḫḫara
▪ SḪR_3 ‘to have a good wind (ship)’ ↗^†saḫara
▪ SḪR_4 ‘kind of Hyoscyamus, narcotic, henbane’ ↗^†suḫḫar

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘to force, to constrain, to be made subservient, to use as a subject of forced labour; to ridicule’

With the exception of SḪR_4 ‘henbane’ (but perhaps also this value), all values of √SḪR may go back, as suggested by Huehnergard, to one primary Sem *ŠḪR ‘to be(come) fearful, intimidated, stock-still’. For details, see DISC below.

▪ See DISC below.
▪ For ClassAr, Badawi2008 gives the two main values of √SḪR as ‘[1] to force, to constrain, to be made subservient, to use as a subject of forced labour; [2] to ridicule’

▪ (following the suggestion in Huehnergard2011) CAD: Akk šuḫarruru (var. šaḫurruru, šuḫurruru, šuḫruru) ‘to become dazed, still, numb with fear; to abate, subside’, šaḫurratu (var. šuḫurratu, šuḫarratu) ‘awesome stillness’; cf. also šaḫrartu ‘deathly silence; devastation’, šuḫarriš (var. šuḫurriš) (adv.) ‘in numbed silence’.
▪ For [v2] cf. Aram šaḥēr ‘to confiscate, press into public service’, Syr šaḥar (Pa) ‘to levy forced service, compel, impress’, šaḥrūṯā ‘forced labour’.
▪ BDB1906 mentions [v1] Ar saḫara ‘to mock at, deride’ in the entry on Hbr sāḥar ‘to go around, travel about in’ (for which also cf. Syr sḫar ‘to go about as beggar, be beggar’, Akk saḫāru ‘to turn, surround; to return’). But letting an interrogation mark precede the juxtaposition, the authors obviously hesitate to accept this connection.
▪

▪ Without further explanation, Huehnergard2011 suggests a Sem šḫr ‘to be(come) fearful, intimidated, stock-still’ as the etymon of [v1], Ar saḫira ‘to jeer, scoff’. Obviously, he sees Akk šuḫarruru ‘to become dazed, still, numb with fear; to abate, subside’ as cognate to Ar saḫ˅ra. If he is right, then the primary meaning of the Ar vb. would be the one conserved in [v2] ‘to subject, make subservient’ (< *‘to intimidate’, caus. of vb. I, *‘to be fearful, numb with fear’) and [v3] ‘to have good wind (ship)’ (< *‘to make the wind subservient’, or *‘to obey to the wind’), while [v1] would probably be secondary, its semantics being derived from ‘to make subservient’ (‘to jeer, scoff, ridicule s.o.’ < *‘to make s.o. look as poor and ridiculous as if subjugated’, perhaps also in the special sense of ‘forced into corvée or doing compulsory labour’) or from *‘to intimidate’ (‘to jeer, scoff, ridicule’ < *‘to intimidate, make numb’ through mockery). In this case, however, one would have to assume Ar saḫara, not saḫira as the corresponding trans. vb. I (saḫira is constructed with min or bi‑ and, thus, intrans.). Another explanation could be that saḫira is a secondary formation, re-interpreted from vb. II., or denominative from one of the many vn.s meaning ‘forced labour, corvée’ which could be a borrowing from Syr, cf. ↗saḫḫara.
▪ [v2] is attested also in Aram Syr.
▪ [v3] is explained in some ClassAr dictionaries as being based on the notion of ‘making subservient’: a ship has a good wind ‘as though it makes the wind subservient, or submissive, to itself’, or ‘as though it obeys and runs the wind’s course’.
▪ [v4] If the plant is identical with ↗saykurān and, hence, toxic/narcotic, there may be a connection to (as in Akk) ‘to become dazed, still, numb’.
▪ Gabal2012 regards Ar √SḪR as an extension of a biconsonantal basis *SḪ ‘to be soft, smooth’. [v3] saḫara ‘to have a good wind’ is explained as *‘to let o.s. be drawn smoothly, without resistance’, something that implies a certain ‘lightness, ease’ (ḫiffaẗ). This ‘lightness’ is also to be found in [v1], ‘to jeer, scoff, mock’ actually meaning *‘to value lightly, disdain, look down upon, (hence also) not to take seriously’. As a lack of resistance is a result of a certain weakness, an extension of meaning into [v2] ‘to subject, make subservient (s.o. who is weak, does not show resistance’) is easily conceivable.

▪ For Engl mask, to mask, masked, masking, masque(erade), see ↗saḫira ‘to mock, ridicule’.

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saḫir‑ سَخِرَ a (saḫar , saḫr , suḫur , suḫr , suḫraẗ , masḫar)

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

√SḪR

vb., I

to laugh, scoff, jeer, sneer (min or bi‑ at), mock, ridicule, deride, make fun (min or bi‑ of) – WehrCowan1979.

Perhaps originally *‘to humiliate’ (by forcing into a subservient position, making to perform corvée, etc.?). If so, the vb. is akin to ↗saḫḫara ‘to subject, make subservient’ (perhaps from *‘to intimidate, silence from fear’) and may go back to a Sem *ŠḪR ‘to be(come) fearful, intimidated, stock-still’.

▪ eC7 Q saḫira (to scorn, to ridicule) 49:11 lā yasḫar qawmun min qawmin ʕasā ʔan yakūnū ḫayran min-hum ‘no people should jeer at others, lest they be better than them’. – Cf. also siḫriyy (object of ridicule, laughing-stock) 38:63 ʔa-’ttaḫaḏnā-hum siḫriyyan ʔam zāġat ʕan-humu ’l-ʔabṣāru ‘Did we take them (wrongly) for a laughing-stock, or have our eyes missed them?’
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▪ Accord. to Huehnergard2011, the vb. goes back to Sem *ŠḪR ‘to be(come) fearful, intimidated, stock-still’ (cf. Akk šuḫarruru ‘to become dazed, still, numb with fear; to abate, subside’).
▪ If Huehnergard is right, then the primary meaning of Ar saḫ˅ra is the one conserved in ↗saḫḫara ‘to subject, make subservient’ (< *‘to intimidate’, caus. of vb. I, *‘to be fearful, numb with fear’), and probably also in ↗^†saḫara ‘to have good wind (ship)’ (< *‘to make the wind subservient’, or *‘to obey to the wind’). ‘To jeer, scoff, ridicule’ would then be secondary, derived from ‘to make subservient’ (< *‘to look down at s.o., despise s.o., because he has been subjugated’, perhaps in the special sense of ‘forced into corvée, or compulsory labour’) or from *‘to intimidate’ (‘to jeer, scoff, ridicule’ < *‘to intimidate, make numb’ through mockery). In this case, however, the intransitivity of saḫira becomes problematic (the vb. is constructed with min or bi‑). Could it be denominative from one the many vn.s that may have come into Ar from another language, e.g. Syr? The Pael forms and vn.s in Syr that are cognate to ↗saḫḫara would support this assumption.
▪ Gabal2012 regards Ar √SḪR as an extension of a biconsonantal basis *SḪ- ‘to be soft, smooth’. He explains saḫara ‘to have a good wind’ as *‘to let o.s. be drawn smoothly, without resistance’, something that implies a certain ‘lightness, ease’ (ḫiffaẗ), which is also to be found in saḫara ‘to jeer, scoff, mock’, the latter actually meaning *‘to value lightly, disdain, look down upon, (hence also) not to take seriously’.
▪ For a discussion of the “root” as whole, see ↗SḪR.

▪ Engl mask, 1530s, from mFr masque ‘covering to hide or guard the face’ (16c.), from Ital maschera, from mLat masca ‘mask, specter, nightmare’, perhaps (though not positively proven) from Ar masḫaraẗ ‘buffoon, mockery’, from saḫira ‘to mock, ridicule’.¹ – From the n. mask also the vb. to mask ‘take part in a masquerade; to disguise’, as well as masked, masking, masking tape, etc. (EtymOnline).

1. Another etymology that has been suggested is that mFr masque is related to Prov mascarar, Cat mascarar, oFr mascurer ‘to black (the face)’, perhaps from a Germ source akin to Engl mesh (q.v.). But compare Occit mascara ‘to blacken, darken’, derived from mask‑ ‘black’, which is held to be from a pIE language, and oOccit masco ‘witch’, surviving in dialects; in Beziers it means ‘dark cloud before the rain comes’.

► tasaḫḫara, vb. V, to scoff, jeer, sneer: self-reflexive of caus. – For another meaning, see deriv. of ↗saḫḫara.

► suḫraẗ, n.f., laughingstock, target of ridicule: specialisation of vn. I. For another meaning, see ↗saḫḫara.
► suḫriyy, var. siḫriyy, n., laughingstock, target of ridicule: nominalized adj. or a vn. (of a rare type)? – For another meaning, see ↗saḫḫara.
► ^BP#3267suḫriyyaẗ, n.f., scorn, derision, mockery, irony: n.abstr. in ‑iyyaẗ; laughingstock, object of ridicule: specialisation of the preceding.
► masḫaraẗ, pl. ‑āt, masāḫirᵘ, object of ridicule, laughingstock: concretized vn. + ‑aẗ (n.un.?); ridiculous, droll, ludicrous: adjectivization; masquerade:.
► ^BP#3509sāḫir, adj., mocking, derisive; satirical: PA I.

saḫḫar‑ سَخَّرَ , ‑saḫḫir‑ (tasḫīr)

√SḪR

vb., II

to subject, make subservient (li‑ to or for the purpose of); to make serviceable (li‑ to), employ, utilize, turn to profitable account (li‑ for), make use; to exploit – WehrCowan1979.

▪ …

▪ C7 Q saḫḫara (to cause to be subservient) 14:33 wa-saḫḫara la-kumu ’l-šamsa wa’l-qamara dāʔibayni ‘and He made the night and day useful to you’. – Cf. also suḫriyy (forced labour; servitude; labour force) 43:32 wa-rafaʕnā baʕḍa-hum fawqa baʕḍin daraǧātin li-yattaḫiḏa baʕḍu-hum baʕḍan suḫriyyan ‘and We raised some of them above others in rank, so that some of them may take others in servitude’; musaḫḫar (subjected, made subservient, compelled to work or serve) 7:54 wa’l-šamsa wa’l-qamara wa’l-nuǧūma musaḫḫarātin bi-ʔamri-hī ‘the sun, the moon and the stars, all of which are made subservient by His order’.
▪ lC19 Hava1899 mentions also a value, now obsolete, ^†‘to appoint by law’, as in wakīl ^†musaḫḫar ‘advocate appointed by law’.

▪ Zammit2002: Aram šaḥēr ‘to confiscate, press into public service’, Syr šaḥar (Pa) ‘to levy forced service, compel, impress’. – Cf. also Syr šaḥrūṯā ‘forced labour’ – PayneSmith1903.

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► tasaḫḫara, vb. V, to reduce to servitude, subjugate: autobenef.; for other meanings see deriv. of ↗saḫira.

► suḫraẗ, n.f., corvée, statute labor, forced labor: specialised vn. I. – For other meanings see ↗saḫira | riǧāl al-~, n.pl., serfs, bondsmen; ʔaʕmāl al-~, n.pl., forced labor, slave labor.
► suḫriyy, var. siḫriyy, n., corvée, statute labor, forced labor: vn. I (rare pattern!). – For other meanings see ↗saḫira.
► tasḫīr, n., subjugation, subjection; exploitation: vn. II.
► musaḫḫir, n., oppressor: PA II.

^†saḫar‑ سَخَر a (saḫr)

√SḪR

vb., I

to have a good wind and voyage (ship) – Hava1899, Lane4 (1872)

Dictionaries of ClassAr explain the semantics of this item as derived from a primary meaning of the vb. ‘to make subservient’. Ultimately it may thus goes back to a Sem *ŠḪR ‘to be(come) fearful, numb, stock-still’. For the whole picture, cf. ↗SḪR and ↗saḫḫara.

In ClassAr, the vb. is attested also as synonymous with ↗saḫira ‘to jeer, scoff, mock’ as well as with ↗saḫḫara ‘to subjugate, make subservient’.

↗SḪR and saḫḫara.

saḫarat il-safīnaẗ ‘the ship had a good wind’ is explained by some ClassAr lexicographers as based on the notion of ‘making subservient’: ‘as though it made the wind subservient, or submissive, to it’, or ‘it obeyed, and ran its (the wind’s) course’ – Lane iv (1872). If this is correct, the item belongs to ↗saḫḫara ‘to make subservient’.

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►

^†suḫḫar سُخَّر

√SḪR

kind of Hyoscyamus, narcotic (Hava1899), a certain herb, or leguminous plant (in Khurāsān), accord. to some lexicographers identical with ↗saykurān, an ever-green plant (Lane), henbane (WehrCowan1979.)

Etymology unclear. The word may be a local variant of ↗saykurān, but it may also be the other way round; phonologically, neither of these hypotheses sounds convincing. Given the toxic/narcotic effect of henbane, a connection with the Sem root *ŠḪR ‘to be(come) fearful, numb, stock-still’ should not be excluded, see ↗SḪR.

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