Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ BŠR_2a ‘skin’ ↗bašaraẗ .
▪ BŠR_2b ‘to touch, be in direct contact with s.o.; to have sexual intercourse; to initiate’ ↗bāšara .
▪ BŠR_2c ‘man, mankind’ ↗bašar .

conc

▪ Ultimately, the items of this entry all go well back to Sem *baśar‑ ‘skin, flesh’ (as reconstructed by DRS 2 (1994)).
▪ BŠR_2b ‘to touch, be in direct contact with s.o.; to have sexual intercourse’ < *‘to have skin-to-skin contact’.
▪ The Sem cognates suggest that also BŠR_2c ‘man, mankind’ belongs here and is thus akin to bašaraẗ ‘skin’.

hist

▪ eC7 Q

cogn

DRS 2 (1994)#BŚR-2: Ug bšr, Hbr baśār ‘chair’; Pun bšr ‘enfant, descendant’; JP bᵉśar, bᵉsar, biśrā, bisrā, Syr besrā, Mand bisra, nSyr bisra, pisra ‘chair’; Ar bašar ‘peau’, SAr bśr ‘peau’ ou ‘chair’, Gz bāsor, Har Gur bäsär ‘chair’; Ar bašara ‘racler (une peau)’; ? Te bašur ‘selle de mariée’. – Ar bašara ‘avoir commerce charnel avec’, ‘avoir un contact immédiat avec, entreprendre personnellement, surveiller de près (un travail)’; ? nSyr *mbašir ‘savoir faire, se tirer d’affaire, être habile’, bašrānā ‘habile’.

disc

▪ Lane I (1863) gives the opinion of some Arab lexicographers that the meaning ‘man, mankind’ of bašar »is a secondary application of the word […], i.e., this signification is tropical« and that »a human being is thus called because his bašaraẗ [‘skin’] is bare of hair and of wool« (s.v. bašar).
▪ Furthermore, Lane mentions that Arab lexicographers suggest a connexion between ‘good news’ (BŠR_1) and ‘skin’ (BŠR_2) in that they interpret [the vb.] bašira a / bašara i as »he became changed in his bašaraẗ (or >complexion) by the annunciation of an event […] and, hence, he rejoiced […]« (op.cit., s.v. bšr 1.).
▪ Jeffery1938, 79-80: »The primitive verb bašara ʻto peel off bark’ [↗BŠR_2 ], then ʻto remove the surface of a thing’, i.e. to ʻsmooth’, is not found in the Qurʔān, though it occurs in the old literature. From this we find bašar un ‘skin’ and thence ʻflesh’, as Syr besrā; Hbr bāśār ¹ ; Akk bišru ʻblood-relation’, whence it is an easy transition to the meaning ʻman’, cf. Hbr bāśār; Syr bar bisrā (pl. banī bisrā = [Grk] ánthrōpoi). bašar^un in this sense occurs frequently in the Qurʔān² and Ahrens, Christliches, 38, thinks it is of Aramaic origin. – The wider use of the root in the Qurʔān, however, is in the sense of ʻto announce good tidings’ […]. This use, however, seems not to be original in Ar but derived from the older religions [etc., ↗BŠR_1 ].«

1. So Sab bs²r and Eth [Gz] bāsor, but these apparently developed late under Jewish or Christian influence. 2. And note bāšara ʻto go in unto a wife’ (ii, 183, only), with Hbr bāśār ‘membrum virile’ [BDB : ‘male organ of generation’ = an euphemism]; Syr bisrā ʻper euphemismum de pudendis viri et feminae.’

west

–

deriv

► bašara, u, vb. I, to scrape off, shave off, scratch off; to grate, shred: the proper etymon?
► bāšara, vb. III, to touch, be in direct contact with; to have sexual intercourse with; to attend, apply o.s., take up, take in hand, pursue, practice, carry out (s.th., a job, a task, etc.): properly *‘to have skin-to-skin, or flesh-to-flesh, contact with s.o.’.

► ^BP#3786bašaraẗ, n.f., outer skin, epidermis, cuticle; skin; complexion: the proper etymon?
► bašarī, adj., epidermal, skin (adj.): nsb-adj from bašaraẗ | ṭabīb b. dermatologist.
► mibšaraẗ, pl. mabāširᵘ, n., skraper, grater: n.instr.
► ^BP#1150mubāšaraẗ, n.f., pursuit practice; direct, physical cause (Isl.Law): vn. III; mubāšaratan, adv., immediately, directly: temporal acc. of vn. III, giving adv. of time.
► mabšūr: ǧubnaẗ m.aẗ shredded cheese: PP I.
► ^BP#912mubāšir, adj., direct; immediate; live (broadcast): PA III, properly *‘having skin-to-skin contact’; – (pl. ‑ūn) practitioner, pursuer, operator; director; manager (Eg.); court usher (Syr.): nominalized PA III.

For bašar ‘man, mankind’, ^BP#1120bašarī ‘human’, and ^BP#2953bašariyyaẗ ‘mankind’ ↗bašar.

For the theme ‘(to announce) good news’ cf. ↗BŠR_1.

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