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Etymological Dictionary of Arabic
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kaff كَفّ , pl. kufūf, ʔakuff 
ID 756 • Sw –/66 • BP 2476 • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√KFː (KFF) 
n.f. 
palm of the hand; glove; paw, foot, claw (of an animal); slap; scale (of a balance); handful; quire; bar (of chocolate) – WehrCowan1979.
 
▪ Kogan2011: from protSem *kapp‑ ‘palm of the hand’. – Cf. also the synonymous of *rāḥ‑at‑ (> Ar ↗rāḥaẗ).
▪ 
▪ … 
▪ Zammit 2002, DRS 10 (2012)#KPP– 3: Akk kapp‑ ‘palm (of the hand)’, Ug *kp ‘palm(s), hand(s)’, Hbr kap ‘hollow, flat of the hand, palm, sole of the foot’, Pun kpp ‘to put away, take away’ (?), Deir ʕAlla kp, Aram kappā ‘palm, hand’, Syr kappā, Mand kapa, ‘palm, hollow of the hand’, Mhr kaf ‘palm’, kəff ‘back of the hand’, Ḥrs kəf ‘palm’, Jib Ḥrs keff ‘palm, back of the hand’, Jib keff (vb.) ‘to hold back, stop’, Ar kaff ‘(palm of the) hand’, kaffa ‘to withhold, restrain, keep back, (ʕan) abstain (from)’, Gz kāf ‘palm of the hand; sole of foot’ (< Hbr), Amh kaf ‘palm of the hand; sole of foot; heel’
 
See section "Concise", above.
 
▪ Not directly from Arabic, but ultimately from the related Phoenician *kapp ‘palm of the hand, eleventh letter of the Phoenician alphabet’ are Engl Kaph (via Hbr kap ‘kaph’) and Engl Kappa (via Grk kappa ‘kappa’) – Huehnergard 2011. 
► kaff Maryam (eg.), n.f., agnus castus, chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus; bot.); rose of Jericho, resurrection plant (Anastatica hierochuntica L.; bot.)
► kaff al- ʔasad, n.f., lion’s-leaf (bot.)
► al- kaff al- ǧaḏmāʔᵘ, n.f., star α in the constellation Cetus
► al- kaff al- ḫaḍīb, n.f., star β in Cassiopeia
► waḍaʕa ḥayātahū ʕalà kaffih, expr., to risk one’s life
► ĭstadarra ’l- ʔakuffa, expr., to secure generous contributions

For other items from the “root”, see ↗√KFː(KFF) as well as ↗k-f-f, ↗k-f-f. 
KFʔ كفأ 
ID … • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√KFʔ 
“root” 
▪ KFʔ_1 ‘to turn over, reverse, invert’ ↗kafaʔa
▪ KFʔ_2 ‘(to be/come) equal, on a par, alike, adequate, appropriate’ ↗k˅fʔ
▪ KFʔ_3 ‘…’ ↗…

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘equality, capability, credentials; to reward; peer, alike; to turn over face down, to tilt, to shield; yield’ 
Among the four values given in DRS for the Sem root KPʔ/P, three are relevant for ClassAr; of these, two survived into MSA. Although listed as separate items here and in DRS, the two may be related etymologically, the ‘turning over’ (and, hence, also ‘folding’) of KFʔ_1 implying a ‘putting over each other of equal halfs’. 
– 
▪ DRS 10 (2012)#KPʔ/P–1: Akk kapāpu, kepū, kapū ‘plier, courber’, Hbr kāpap ‘courber, incliner’, Aram kᵉpap, kᵉpā ‘incliner, courber, renverser’, Ar kafaʔa ‘renverser, retourner, détourner vers une nouvelle direction’. –2. Ar kāfaʔa ‘égaler, être égal à; rétribuer qn pour ce qu’il a fait’. […] –4. Ar kāff, kafūf ‘qui a les dents usées de vieillesse’, Eth kafəʔa ‘s’émousser, s’affaiblir’, Tña käfʔe, Te käfʔa, Amh käff ‘être mauvais’, täkäffa ‘être mal disposé, prendre en aversion’, Amh Gur kəfu ‘mauvais’.
▪ Orel&Stolbova1994#1431: Ar kfʔ a ‘to go away’ has cognate in the form kop ‘to come’ in a WCh language. 
▪ BAH2008 gives the values of the root in ClassAr as: ‘equality, capability, credentials; to reward; peer, alike; to turn over face down, tilt, shield; to yield’.
▪ KFʔ_1 often shows overlapping with ↗KFY.
▪ For KFʔ_1, Orel&Stolbova1994 reconstruct Sem *k˅paʔ‑ ‘go away’ and WCh *kap‑ (loss of auslaut laryngeal), both from AfrAs *kapaʔ‑ ‘to go away’.
▪ Any relation between KFʔ_1 and KFʔ_2 ? Gabal2012 suggests a derivation of KFʔ from a biconsonantal nucleus with the basic meaning of ‘to grasp the loose part (of s.th.) and, by folding it, return it so that it is not loose/spread any more’ (qabḍ al-ṭaraf al-muntašir wa-ṯanyuh wa-radduh fa-lā yantašir), and the essential meaning of KFʔ/W is ‘to fold in order to cover the open back side of s.th.’.
▪ Ehret1995 does not mention KFʔ but derives the biconsonantal Ar kaffa ‘to avert, stay; to desist, refrain’ from a pre-PSem root *KP ‘to stop, cease’ 
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