▪ Not from Ar
siǧill but from the same source is Engl
seal ‘design stamped on wax’, especially an impressed figure attached to a document as evidence of authenticity, c.
1200,
sel,
sele, from oFr
seel,
seal ‘seal on a letter’ (modFr
sceau), from VulgLat *
sigellum (source of
suggello, Span
sello; also oFris mHGe
sigel, Ge
Siegel), from Lat
sigillum ‘small picture, engraved figure, seal’, dimin. of
sīgnum ‘identifying mark, token, symbol; signal, omen;
sign in the heavens, constellation’ (
EtymOnline). According to Watkins (cited
ibid.), the latter is literally *‘standard that one follows’, from protIndEur
*sekw-no-, from root
*sekw- (1) ‘to follow’. »De Vaan has it from protIndEur
*sekh-no- ‘cut’, from protIndEur root *
sek- ‘to cut’. He writes: “The etymological appurtenance to
seco ‘to cut’ implies a semantic shift of
*sek-no- ‘what is cut out’, ‘carved out’ > ‘sign’.” But he also compares Hbr
sakkīn, Aram
sakkīn ‘slaughtering-knife’ [see Ar ↗
sikkīn], and mentions a theory that “both words are probably borrowed from an unknown third source”«. Pfeifer (in
DWDS) supports derivation of Lat
sīgnum from *‘to cut’: »eigentlich wohl ‘eingeschnitzte Marke, geschnitztes Bild’ oder auch ‘auf Holzstäben eingekerbtes Zeichen beim Losorakel’, zu Lat
secāre ‘schneiden’, auch ‘schnitzen’; [in Ge] zuerst [
C14] in der Lat Kaufmannssprache der Hanse für ‘Firmenzeichen, Handelsmarke’ gebräuchlich, von da im [
C16] in den allgemeinen Sprachgebrauch übergegangen für ‘(abgekürzte) Unterschrift, Namenszeichen, Monogramm’, seit dem [
C18] übertragen ‘Kennzeichen, Merkmal, Stempel, Gepräge’.«
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