▪ Jeffery1938: »The Lexicographers were not very sure of its meaning. They generally take it to mean ‘palace, magnificent building’ (Ǧawharī), or the name of a castle (
TA, ii, 179), while some say it means ‘glass tiles’,
balāṭ min qawārīr. All these explanations, however, seem to be drawn from the Qurʔānic material, and they do not explain how the word can be derived from √ṢRḤ. / Nöldeke,
Neue Beiträge, 51, pointed out that in all probability the word is from Eth [Gz]
ṣərḥ ‘room’, sometimes used for ‘templum’, sometimes for ‘palatium’, but as Dillmann,
Lex, 1273, notes, always for
aedes altiores conspicuae. This is a much likelier origin than the Aram
ṣryḥ, which, though in the Targum to Jud. ix, 49, it means ‘citadel, fortified place’, usually means a ‘deep cavity in a rock’, and is the equivalent of Arab
ḍarīḥ, not of
ṣarḥ.
1
It is doubtful if the word occurs in the genuine old poetry, but it is found in the SAr inscriptions, where
ṣrḥt = ‘aedificium elatum’ (Rossini,
Glossarium, 225).«