conc▪ One could imagine that the idea of ‘softness, tenderness, smoothness’ represents a/the basic meaning of the root ↗ṬFL and that from it, both ‘clay, argil, loam’ (↗ṭufāl) and ‘infant, baby, child’ (↗ṭifl) have developed. It is also possible, however, and perh. even more likely (given the wider Sem evidence), that ‘softness, tenderness, smoothness’ derives from *‘soil, mud, dust’, as represented in Syr ṭᵉfal ‘to soil’, Ar †ṭafāl ~ ṭufāl ‘dry mud’, vb. I †ṭafila a (ṭafal) ‘to be(come) soiled by dust (herbage, plant)’, †ṭafīl ‘turbid water remaining in a watering-trough, in the bottom of a tank’ (Lane, Hava1899).