disc▪ DRS 5 (1995) distinguishes five values attached to the root in Sem, four of which are represented in Ar. Among these four, one (no. -4.) is to be found in EAr only, and one (no. -3.) has not survived into MSA. Thus, EtymArab has to deal with the first two only, i.e., according to DRS’ grouping, 1. ‘to stretch out the hand; to guide; to offer, present’, and 2. ‘to totter, stagger, reel (in walking)’.
▪ Badawi 2008 lists the following values for the root in ClassAr: ‘guide, vanguard, to guide, to rightly guide; to explain, to clarify; road; daylight; objective; piety; mode; manner; a present, to give a present; a sacrificial offering, to offer a sacrificial offering’. All of these seem to belong to DRS’ main value no. 1 (‘to explain, clarify’ = *‘to guide s.o. to the solution’; ‘road’ = *‘the way on which one is led/guided’; ‘daylight’ = *‘the light that guides, shows the right way/direction’; ‘objective’ = *‘what one is led/guided to’; ‘piety’ = the result of being led on, or following, the right path; ‘mode, manner’ = fig. use of *‘way, road’; ‘present’ = *‘what is presented/offered when stretching out the hand to s.o.’).
▪ Although they are with all probability etymologically connected, EtymArab treats ‘to lead, guide’ and ‘to offer, give as a present’ as two individual items, for the mere sake of making the semantic variety within the root easier to handle and to account for the fact that, from a modern perspective, the two do not have to much to do with each other any longer.
▪ If Zammit2002: 553 is right then »[t]he Hbr sense ‘to stretch out the hand’ might be more generic and neutral than the sense ‘to guide’ attested in Ar, SAr, Syr and which could have developed later.« Ar [v1] ‘to guide’ may thus properly be *‘to stretch out the hand to s.o. in order to guide him/her’, while [v2] ‘to give, offer, present’ could be explained as having developed from *‘to stretch out the hand in order to give s.th. to s.o.’. However, [v2] may also depend on ‘to guide’, the notion of ‘giving (as a present, or sacrifice)’ having evolved from *‘to direct s.th./make s.th. find its way to s.o.’. An expression which could be seen as a semantic link between both is Ar hadā-hā ʔilay-hi ‘he led/guided her [sc. the bride] to him [sc. the bridegroom]’, an expression in which ‘leading, guiding’ and ‘giving, handing over, presenting’ overlap and cannot be separated, cf. also the meaning of ↗hadiyyaẗ, in ClassAr, not only as ‘present’ but also as ‘bride’ and ‘beast of sacrifice’ (to be led to Mekkah and presented there) (Freytag1835, Steingass1884, Wahrmund1887). – [v3] ‘to totter, stagger, reel (in walking)’ is more difficult to relate to [v1] or [v2], but since it is unlikely that an Ar form VI stands there isolated both in its Ar and Sem “root environment”, and since also derivation from ‘to guide, lead, direct’ does seem possible, we may explain it as a tentative/conative *‘to try to guide o.s., find the balance’, not uncommon with form VI.
▪ For HDY_1, Huehnergard 2011 reconstructs WSem *HDY ‘to lead, extend’.