Bibliotheca Polyglotta

According to Ehret1989:177, the root has preserved the original biconsonantal *PṢ ‘to take out’. In other cases, the original root has been extended, cf., for instance, (iterative) ^†faṣfaṣ ‘to separate, disperse’, (iterative) faṣḥ ‘to break forth and shine in full splendor’ (↗faṣaḥa), (durative) faṣd ‘to bleed’ (↗faṣada), (sunderative) ^†faṣʕ ‘to press the fresh date to make it come out of the shell, so take or scrape off the shell of an almond, put off the turban’, (finitive) faṣl ‘to cut off and separate one thing from another, detach, distinguish between’ (↗faṣala), (fortative) faṣm ‘to cut, break’ (↗faṣama), (inchoative > tr.) faṣy ‘to separate, loosen, dismiss, set free’ (↗tafaṣṣà).

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► faṣṣaṣa, vb. II, to pod, shell, peel (e.g., peas, beans); to section, divide into pieces (e.g., an orange); to divide, split up (a subject material); to give a detailed outline of s.th.: denominative

FṢḤ فصح

√FṢḤ

“root”

▪ FṢḤ_1 ‘to be clear, good, pure (Arabic); to be eloquent’ ↗faṣuḥa (with ↗faṣāḥaẗ, ↗faṣīḥ, ↗fuṣḥà)
▪ FṢḤ_2 ‘Passover; Easter’ ↗fiṣḥ

Other values, now obsolete, include:

FṢḤ_3 ‘milk divested of the froth’ : ^†fiṣḥ (Lane1877)
FṢḤ_4 ‘breaking of the dawn light’ : ^†faṣḥ (Lane1877)

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘1 breaking of the dawn light; 2 to be eloquent, express o.s. clearly’

▪ While the notion of ‘clarity, purity’ and ‘eloquence’ (FṢḤ_1) probably goes back to that of ^†‘milk divested of the froth’ (FṢḤ_3) or the ^†‘breaking of the dawn light’ (FṢḤ_4), which with all likelihood are akin to each other (sharing the idea of clarity, brightness, and/or purity), the word for the Jewish ‘Passover’ and Christian ‘Easter’ (FṢḤ_2) seems to be the result of regressive assimilation (ṣ < s before ḥ) after borrowing from Hbr, either directly or via Syr peṣḥā, so that, etymologically, fiṣḥ should be arranged sub radice ↗FSḤ rather than √FṢḤ; due to its origin in Hbr pāsaḥ ‘to pass over, spring over’, it is, properly spoken, closer to Ar ↗fusḥaẗ ‘walk, promenade, stroll, ride, drive, outing, excursion’ than to the idea of purity (FṢḤ) with which it obviously became associated, given the homonymity of the roots after the change from s to ṣ.
▪ FṢḤ_4: ^†faṣḥ ‘breaking of the dawn light’ and the corresponding vb. I, ^†faṣaḥa, a (faṣḥ), ‘to appear in all its splendour (dawn)’, belong with all probability together with FṢḤ_3 *‘to be divested of the froth (milk)’, and, hence, FṢḤ_1 ‘to use clear language, be eloquent’. The Sem evidence suggests that this, rather than ‘purity’, is the primary value.

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▪ See above, section CONC. For details:
▪ FṢḤ_1 : see ↗faṣuḥa
▪ FṢḤ_2 : see ↗fiṣḥ and (with non-emphatic s) ↗fasaḥa, ↗FSḤ.

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