Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ḤṢN_1 ‘to be strong, inaccessible; fortress’ ↗¹ḥaṣuna, ↗ḥiṣn
▪ ḤṢN_2 ‘to be chaste (woman)’ ↗²ḥaṣuna, ʻunblemished reputation, integrity (woman; Isl. Law) ↗ʔiḥṣān
▪ ḤṢN_3 ‘horse, stallion’ ↗ḥiṣān
▪ ḤṢN_4 ‘fox’: ʔabū ’l‑ ↗ḥuṣayn

Other values, now obsolete, include (Hava1899):

▪ ^†ḤṢN_5 ʻ¹lock; ²piece of iron; ³basket’: ^†miḥṣan (pl. maḥāṣinᵘ)
▪ ^†ḤṢN_6 ʻ¹freedom; ²marriage; ³mind’: ^†ʔiḥṣān
▪ ^†ḤṢN_ ‘…’: ḥṣn

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘fortress, palace, to be inaccessible, to be immune; to fortify, armament, lock; to be chaste, a married person; stallion, horse’

conc

▪ ClassAr lexicographers regard [v1] ʻinaccessibility’ as the primary value from which all others that can be found in the root are derived. For them, [v2] the chastity of a woman is her *ʻinaccessibility’; [v3] a horse is called ḥiṣān»because he preserves his rider [TA] or because his back is like the ḥiṣn to its rider [Mgh, Mṣb]«; and also [v4] the fox’s name, ʔabū ’l-ḥuṣayn, is connected to ḥiṣn ‘fortress’ »because of his protecting himself from causes of harm by his acuteness [Ṣ, Ḳ]« (LANE ii 1865).
▪ [v1] and [v2]: Etymologically, however, one may have to keep at least two strings apart, as the idea of ‘fortification’ seems to be dependent on ḥiṣn ‘fortress’ which, accord. to Kogan2015, »almost certainly« is an Aramaism (from Syr ḥisn ‘fortress’, with sound shift Syr /s/ > Ar /ṣ/). In contrast, Leslau2006 and Belova2009 refute the Aram provenience and instead assume a SAr or modSAr origin of Ar ḥiṣn ‘fortress’. DRS, too, keeps two Sem roots apart: one (*√ḤS/ṢN) that gave Ar ¹ḥaṣuna ʻto be strong, fortified’, and another one (*√ḤṢN) that gave Ar ²ḥaṣuna ʻto be chaste’. In *√ḤS/ṢN, the authors consider the forms with /ṣ/ to be SSem variants of what in NWSem appears as /s/.¹ Obviously due to this vacillation betw. /s/ and /ṣ/, Kogan remarks that also »[t]he well-known Ar root ↗√ḤSN ‘to be good, beautiful’ deserves attention as a potential cognate since the semantic shift ʻgood’ > ʻstrong’ (or vice versa) is not unconceivable« – Kogan2015: 383.
▪ As already mentioned sub [v1], the Ar lexicographical tradition tends to make also [v3] ‘horse, stallion’ and [v4] ‘fox’ dependent on ḥiṣn ‘fortress’. This may be true in the case of ‘fox’, though prob. not in the version quoted above; rather, ʔabū ’l- ḥuṣayn may originally have been *ʻthe one with the little fortress (i.e., the fox den)’ (ḥuṣayn interpreted as a dimin. of ḥiṣn, formed on the familiar FuʕayL pattern). As for ‘horse, stallion’, it may rather be *ʻthe strong one’ than *ʻ(a rider’s) fortress’.
▪ ^†[v5] : The value is kept apart from the others in DRS (as #ḤṢN-4), probably for systematic reasons. But is seems connected to [v1], as all sub-values can be seen as a specific kind of *ʻprotection’. The sub-values are further explained in Lane ii (1865): ʻlock (syn. qifl); the piece of iron that extends upwards upon the nose of the horse, having its base in the kiʕāmaẗ which is the iron thing that embraces, or clasps, the muzzle of the horse (Jac. Schultens, as cited in Freytag’s Lex., explains it as ʻferramentum quoddam in fræno equi et frænum ipsum’); a basket of the kind called zabīl’.
▪ The values assembled under ^†[v6] all have developed from [v2] ʻchastity, integrity, unblemished reputation’. As explained in more detail in entry ↗ʔiḥṣān, a way of securing a woman’s good reputation used to be to marry her off, hence the equation of the caus. vb. IV, ʔaḥṣana, lit. ʻto let (a woman) keep an unblemished reputation’, with ʻ²marriage’. Given that respectable women often are identified with free women (↗ḥurr), the meaning ʻchastity, integrity, unblemished reputation’ not only came to mean ʻ²marriage’ but also ʻ¹freedom’. In a similar way (but unclear how exactly), the meaning ʻ¹freedom’ seems to have given rise to the notion of ʻ³mind’.
▪ …

1. »Pour diverses hypothèses à ce sujet, voir Brockelmann Lex 247, Praetorius ZDMG 61 (1907): 616, Fraenkel 235, Landberg Glos. 424, CDG 247. – Pour l’ensemble des formes lexicales en sémitique, Marrassini 93.

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▪ DRS 9 (2010) #ḤṢN-1 Ar *ḥaṣuna ‘être chaste, vertueuse (femme)’, ḥāṣinaẗ ‘femme vertueuse’, ḥaṣān ‘femme vertueuse, épouse légitime’, ḥiṣn, ḥuṣn ‘vertu (d’une femme)’; Sab ḥṣn ‘prendre sous sa protection’, ʔḥṣn (pl.) ‘épouses’. -2 Ar ḥiṣān ‘étalon, cheval de race’, Ḥrs ḥəṣān, Jib hásún ‘cheval’. -3 YemAr ĭḥtiṣān ‘biens, possessions’. -4 Tña ḥad̮in ‘fer’, Ar ʔaḥṣinaẗ ‘fers, pointes de lances’; Soq ḥaṣəhan ‘fer, lame’.

▪ DRS 9 (2010) #ḤS/ṢN-1 Hbr ḥosen ‘force’, EmpAram ḥsn ‘violence’, JP ḥᵃsen ‘être fort, véhément’, Ar ḥaṣuna ‘être fort, fortifié’; oAram ḥsn, JP ḥisnā ‘forteresse, force’, Syr ḥesnā, Ar ḥiṣn ‘forteresse’, SAr mḥṣn ‘ouvrage défensif, fortification’, Mhr Ḥrs ḥāṣən ‘grande maison’, Jib ḥeṣn, Soq ḥóṣon ‘château’; Gz ḥəṣn ‘forteresse, château’; Hbr ḥāsīn, Aram ḥassīnā, Ar ḥaṣīn ‘fort’. -2 ʔabū ’l-ḥiṣn, LevAr ʔabū ḥsēn, DaṯAr ḥuṣaynī, Soq ḥṣáyni ‘renard’.

▪ [v1] Belova, “South Semitic Languaes”, in EALL iv (2009), 300 ff: Ar ḥisn ~ huṣn < YemAr ḥisn ~ huṣn ‘protected place, fortress’, cf. Sab ḥṣn ‘to take under protection’, Jib oḥóṣun ‘to build, to fortify’, ḥeṣn ‘castle’, Soq ḥoṣon, Gz ḥǝṣn ‘fortress, castle’.
▪ …

disc

▪ [v1] : The origin of protAram *ḥsn ‘to be strong’, the hypothetical ancestor of oAram ḥsn ‘fortification, stronghold’ (> Syr ḥesnā ‘fortress’ > Ar ḥiṣn), is uncertain – Kogan2015: 383 #8.
▪ [v5] : It is not clear why DRS did not group Ar ʔaḥṣinaẗ ‘fers, pointes de lances’ together with ḥiṣn sub *√ḤS/ṢN, but separately under #ḤṢN-4.
▪ For the other values, see above, section CONC.
▪ …

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