Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ʕBR_1 ‘the other/opposite side; to cross, traverse, pass over’ ↗ʕabara
▪ ʕBR_2 ‘contemplation; lesson’ ↗ʕibraẗ
▪ ʕBR_3 ‘expression, to express (a feeling, an opinion, etc.)’ ↗ʕibāraẗ
▪ ʕBR_4 ‘to interpret a dream’ ↗ʕabbara
▪ ʕBR_5 ‘tear, to shed tears’ ↗ʕabraẗ
▪ ʕBR_6 ‘(compound) perfume’ ↗ʕabīr
▪ ʕBR_7 ‘Hebrew’ ↗ʕibrī
Other values, now obsolete, include:

ʕBR_8 ‘great number, crowd’ : ^†ʕubr (Hava1899)
ʕBR_9 ‘sturdy, strong’ : ^†ʕ˅br (Hava1899)
ʕBR_10 ‘ewe or goat one year old’ : ^†ʕabūr, pl. ʕabāʔirᵘ (Hava1899)
ʕBR_11 ‘thick-woolled (sheep)’ : ^†muʕbar (Hava1899)

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘1 one side of the valley, to traverse, passer-by; 2 to interpret a dream; 3 contemplation, a lesson; 4 tear; 5 plenty, group of people; 6 mixture of perfumes’

conc

▪ Several of the values that the root ʕBR can take in Ar seem to be based, in one way or another, on ʕBR_1 (cf. entry ↗ʕabara). They are distinguished here only for the sake of structuring the semantic diversity within the root.
▪ ʕBR_1 : Following Dolgopolsky whose presentation looks convincing, the etyma proper seem to be ^†ʕibr ~ ʕabr (preserved in MSA in the prep. ʕabrᵃ ‘across’) ~ ^†ʕubr ‘shore, bank, margin’, from Sem *ʕib(˅)r- ‘region beyond/across a body of water (river, lake, sea), (further) bank/shore’, and the (prob. denom.) vb. Sem *ʕ˅b˅r- (> Ar ʕabara) ‘to cross (a body of water), pass over’ > *‘to pass over a stream to the other side’. (According to Dolgopolsky, these items may even be related to words for ‘shore, river bank; mainland’ in some IE langs, like Grk ḗpeiros, or Ge Ufer). – From ‘crossing’ seem to have branched off, through figurative use, several other ideas, notably ʕBR_2-4, perh. also ʕBR_5 and ʕBR_7.
▪ ʕBR_2 : based on ʕBR_1 ‘to cross’, interpreted as *‘to cross, traverse mentally, ponder about, wander through a world of ideas or possibilities’, hence ‘to contemplate’ (> ‘to draw a lesson from’), and hence also ‘to examine, test’.
▪ ʕBR_3 : based on ʕBR_1 ‘to cross’, interpreted as *‘to make s.th. pass from the tongue of the speaker to the ear of the hearer’ or *‘…from the inner world of feelings and thought to the outer world of words, i.e., to articulate s.th.’, hence ‘to express (a feeling, an opinion, etc.)’; cf. Engl express < Lat ex-primere, lit., *‘to squeeze, make come out’.
▪ ʕBR_4 : based on ʕBR_1 ‘to cross’, interpreted as *‘to translate the symbolic meaning of a dream into a concrete meaning’, hence ‘to interpret a dream’.
▪ ʕBR_5 : Perh. based on ʕBR_1 ‘to cross’, interpreted as *‘to cross a border, reach a limit, a brim, overflow’ (esp. feelings, emotion), hence ‘tear, to shed tears’.
▪ ʕBR_6 : ʕabīr ‘(compound) perfume’ is hardly akin to ʕBR_1 ‘to cross’; etymology obscure.
▪ ʕBR_7 : Ar ʕibrī ‘Hebrew’, which is the same as the Hbr term ʕiḇrī, has been linked by earlier research to ʕBR_1 ‘to pass by, go beyond, cross’, interpreting the Biblical ʕiḇrīm either as ‘Bedouins’, i.e., a group of people who *‘cross, or wander around in, the desert’, or, more convincingly (because paying attention to the nisba form), as *‘those who come from, or inhabit, the other side of the river, the region beyond (Hbr ʕēḇär; sc. either the Jordan or the Euphrates)’. The ‘Hebrews’ seem to be identical with the ḫabiru (Akk ḫāpiru) of the Tell el-Amarna tablets (-C14), a term that is believed to have been applied to »displaced persons who leave their homeland and seek their fortunes in neighboring countries«; the word seems to have a social connotation here, while its use as a n.gent. obviously is post-exilic – Hoch1994. – For a similar idea, cf. also ↗ʕarab.
▪ ʕBR_8-11 : etymology unclear/obscure.

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cogn

ʕBR_1
▪ Zammit2002, Tropper2008, CAD: Akk ebēru (var. epēru, ḫabāru) ‘to cross (water); to extend beyond (s.th.)’, ebar (prep.) ‘beyond’, ¹ebertu (var. abartu) ‘the other bank/side’, ²ebertu ‘pace; step (of a staircase)’,¹ Ug ʕbr ‘to pass by/through/over; to cross’, Phoen ʕbr ‘to pass’, Hbr ʕābar ‘to pass over, through, by’, Aram (sf) ʕbr ‘to pass on, by’, BiblAram ʕᵃbar ‘region across, beyond’, Syr ʕᵉbar ‘to pass on, by’, (af.) ‘to translate’, SAr ʕbr ‘to pass, cross’, Ar ʕabara ‘to interpret’, ʕābir ‘one who passes over’. – Not in EthSem.
▪ LandbergZetterstéen1942: DaṯAr ʕabr ‘canal’, cf. Sab ʕbr ‘bank, side’ [Müller2010: ‘(Ufer)seite (eines Wadis)’, ʕbr-n (prep.) ‘opposite of’, ʕbrt ‘littoral (of a wadi)’], like ʕubr ~ʕibr in the luġaẗ; Sab ʕbr = Hbr ʕēḇär ‘river bank, opposite side, region beyond; field, [prob.] littoral field irrigated by water or close to the water course’; accord. to Rossi ‘terreno a terazzi coltivato (nel Yemen occidentale’ = Stein2012: ʕbrt ‘(lit., seitlich gelegene?) Felder, die an den Seitenrändern der Wadis gelegenen, terrassenförmigen Felder’.
▪ Militarev2006 (in StarLing)#1641: Akk ebēru ‘to cross (water); to extend beyond s.th.’, Ug ʕbr ‘to cross’, Hbr ʕbr ‘to move through, pass over, pass by, travel (along a road)’, ʕäbär ‘(river) bank’, Syr ʕbr ‘to cross; to inundate, invade’, Ar ʕbr [-u- ] ‘to cross; to move through, pass over, pass by, travel (along a road)’; ʕubr ‘(river) bank’, SAr ʕbr, Mhr ʔābōr ‘to cross’, Jib ʕɔ̄r ‘to cross; to go far away’ (caus. aʕbér). – Outside Sem: (Berb) Sokna ta-barutt, pl. burâw, Fojaha ta-bārû-t, Ayr Taw abǝr, pl. abǝr-ăn ‘road, way’; (3 WCh langs show the forms) var, vǝ̀rǝ ‘to go out’, and bār ‘to escape’; (2 ECh langs have:) bìre ‘to go by’, bĩrré ‘to go for a walk’; and in Dahalo (Sanye) we find ḅariy - ‘to go out, depart’.
▪ Dolgopolsky2012#141: BiblHbr ʕēḇär ‘opposite side (of a river, lake etc.); side, edge, bank’, SamHbr ʕēbā̊r ‘id.’, JudAram ʕiḇrā ~ ʕäḇrā ‘opposite side’, Syr ʕeḇrā ‘crossing (a river), further bank’, Mand ʕbra ‘coastland, foreshore’, Ar ʕibr ~ ʕabr ~ ʕubr ‘shore’, Akk eber-nāri (lit. ‘the region beyond the river’) (< WSem), Ebl a-bar-rí-iš = ʕabar-iš (/ʕabāriš/) loc. ‘on the other bank’; Akk ebēru ‘to cross (water)’, Ebl a-ba-rí-im = ʕabār-im inf. gen. ‘id.’, Hbr Phoen Pun Ug oAram EmpAram JudAram Syr Ar Sab √ʕBR G ‘to cross over (water etc.), pass’. – Outside Sem: (Can >) Eg (in syllabic script) ʕá-bí-ya ‘ford, crossing’ (Eg NK y < *r); (IE:) Grk (Att) ḗpeiros, (Dor) ápeiros (long ā), (Aeol) áperros (with ā) ‘mainland’ (< *āper-yo-), oEngl ōfer, Du oever, mHGe uover > nHGe Ufer ‘shore’ (< *āper-o-), mLGe ō̈ver ‘id.’ (< *āper-yo-).
▪ ʕBR_2 : As ʕBR_1.
▪ ʕBR_3 : As ʕBR_1. – A similar semantic development is also found in Syr.
▪ ʕBR_4 : As ʕBR_1. – Closest to the value ‘to interpret a dream’, attached in ClassAr not only to the D-stem ʕabbara but also to the G-stem ʕabara, comes prob. the Syr (likewise caus.) Š-stem, ʔaʕbar, in the sense of ‘to transfer, translate’.
▪ ʕBR_5 Probably related to Hbr ʕäḇrāʰ ‘overflow, excess outburst; arrogance; overflowing rage, fury’, (Št-stem, denom.) hiṯʕabbar ‘to be arrogant, infuriate o.s.’ (BDB1906), and Syr ʕbar ‘…; to surpass, exceed, be beyond, overcome’ (e.g., bᵊ-šūp̱rāh lᵊ-šemšā ʕābrā hᵊwāt ‘she surpassed the sun in fairness’), (eṯp) ‘…; to neglect, fail (of accomplishment), to transgress, sin’, (aph) ‘…; to go beyond, exceed’ (PayneSmith1903). – ? Cf. also Akk ebirtu (var. abirtu, ḫibirtu), name of a month? According to CAD, this word is »possibly to be connected with [Akk] ebēru, in the meaning ‘to overflow’, attested in WSem (Hbr, Aram), hence ‘the month of overflowing of the rivers’«. – Furthermore, it is not clear whether WSem ‘to overflow’ is or is not related to Sem ʕBR ‘to cross’.
▪ ʕBR_6 : No obvious cognates found so far. – Is there any connection between ʕabīr ‘(mixed) perfume’ and the word ↗ʕanbar ‘ambergris’ that Lane lists both under √ʕNBR and √ʕBR?
▪ ʕBR_7 : Probably related to ʕBR_1 – see discussion above in section CONC.
▪ ʕBR_8-11 : ?

▪ In addition to the values mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, Sem ʕBR has also

BDB1906, CAD, Militarev2006 (in StarLing)#1662: Akk ebūru ‘harvest; crop, produce, grain; harvest time; summer’, Hbr ʕāḇûr ‘produce, yield’, JudAram Syr ʕăbūrā ‘produce, grain, corn’. < Sem *ʕabūr- ‘harvest; produce; grain’, derived from Sem *ḥ˅b˅r- ‘to gather’.
PayneSmith1903: Syr ʕābartā, ʕābārtā ‘dysentery’.

1. Cf. perh. also Akk ebirtu, var. abirtu, ḫibirtu, name of a month, »possibly to be connected with ebēru, in the meaning ‘to overflow’, attested in WSem (Hbr, Aram), hence ‘the month of overflowing of the rivers.’«

disc

ʕBR_1
▪ If Dolgopolsky’s assumption of a priority of the n. over the vb. is correct, then the only direct reflex of the etymon proper in MSA is the prep. ʕabrᵃ , originally a acc. of place/time from the now obsolete n. ^†ʕabr, in ClassAr more often appearing as ^†ʕibr (which is perh. the more original form), or also ^†ʕubr ‘shore, bank, margin’, from which we also find the adj. ^†ʕubrī ‘(species of lote-tree) that grows on the banks of rivers, and becomes large’ (Lane).
▪ Dolgopolsky2012#141: Sem *ʕib˻˅˼r- ‘the region beyond/across a body of water (river, lake, sea), (further) bank/shore’ (> denom. vb. Sem *ʕBR ‘to cross (a body of water), pass over’ > *‘to pass over a stream to the other side’), IE *āper-o-, *āper-yo- ‘shore, river bank; mainland’ (> [Kluge2002:] WGerm *ōbera-), both from Nostr *ʕ˅P˅R˅ ‘(river-)bank’.
▪ Militarev2008 (in StarLing): Sem *ʕ˅b˅r- ‘1 to cross; 2 to extend beyond (s.th.); 3 to move through, pass over, pass by, travel (along a road); 4 to inundate, invade; 5 (river) bank; 6 to go far away’, Berb *Habar- ‘road, way’, WCh *H˅bar- ‘to escape; to go out’, ECh *birr- ‘to go by; to go for a walk’, Dahalo (Sanye) ḅariy- (<*H˅bar- ?) ‘to go out, depart’, all from AfrAs *ʕabir- ‘traveling (along a road), passing by, crossing (rivers)’.
▪ ʕBR_2 : see above, section CONC.
▪ ʕBR_3 : ʕibāraẗ ‘speech that passes from the tongue of the speaker to the ear of the hearer; hence: passage in a book or writing; and hence also: word, expression, phrase; and: explanation, interpretation’ (Lane).
▪ ʕBR_4 : A notion that is close to that of interpreting a dream, namely that of ‘translating’, is also found in the Syr caus., here expressed not (as in Ar) in the D-, but in the Š-stem (aph) ʔaʕbar which, in addition to the lit. meaning ‘to cause/allow to pass; to allow to depart; to transfer, remove, transport, transplant’ and several other figurative usages (e.g., ‘to pass over, remit, sc. a transgression, a sin; to convert, turn, e.g., from paganism to the faith; [logic ] to pass over, e.g., from a part to the whole, from detail to generality; to go beyond, exceed; etc.)’ also shows the value ‘to transfer, translate’, e.g., men lešānā ʕebrānā lᵊ-yūnānā ‘from Hebrew to Greek’ – PayneSmith1903.
▪ ʕBR_5 : Cf. also ClassAr (G-stem) ^†ʕabara (ʕabr) and ^†ʕabira a (ʕabar) ‘to shed tears; to grieve, mourn, be sorrowful, sad, unhappy’, ^†ʕabrà (pl. ʕubr) ‘weeping (eye), hence: grieving (woman), bereft of her child’ – Lane/Hava1899. – If ʕabraẗ ‘tear’ is related to WSem *ʕBR ‘to overflow’, its original meaning would be *‘what overflows’ or *‘result of an overflow (of emotion, rage, fury, etc.)’. Gesenius1915 thinks it is obvious that WSem *ʕBR ‘to overflow’ has to be treated as a root in its own right, different from Sem *ʕBR ‘to cross’; but why should ‘to overflow’ not go back to an earlier ‘reaching/crossing a border, go beyond, pass over’ and thus probably have developed from the Sem etymon of ʕBR_1?
▪ ʕBR_6 : Hoch1994#68 thinks that Eg ʕbyr */ʕabīr/, which is of uncertain meaning but seems to be a loanword from Sem—»[cf.] Ar ʕabīr ‘fragrance; perfume’«—, perh. can be associated with BiblHbr (Song of Songs, 5:5) môr ʕōḇēr ‘liquid myrrh’ (cf. Ar ↗murr), where ʕōḇēr seems to be a PA (prop. ʕôḇēr) of ʕāḇar in the sense of *‘to overflow’. – The fact that Lane also lists ↗ʕanbar ‘ambergris’ under √ʕBR (though referring from there to √ʕNBR), prompts one to think of the possibility of an etymological relation between ʕabīr and ʕanbar, all the more so since ClassAr dictionaries render ʕabīr as ‘a mixture of perfumes, compounded with saffron [!]’ or sometimes even as a synonym for ‘saffron’ (Lane), while ʕanbar, too, often seems to take the meaning ‘saffron’ (Lane, Hava1899). However, even if there was some kind of relation between the two, it would still be difficult, phonologically speaking, to derive ʕabīr directly from ʕanbar.
▪ ʕBR_7 : The origin of the term Hbr ʕiḇrî (Ar ʕibrī) ‘Hebrew’ is, as Hopkins summarizes the state of affairs in etymological research about the word, still »a moot point, much discussed yet unresolved. None of the many etymologies proposed is satisfactory and so the origin of ‘Hebrew’ must be accounted unclear. Eccentricities apart, there are three main avenues of approach: (i) ʕiḇrî is an eponymous gentilic adjective, derived from the proper name ʕēḇär ‘Eber’, the great-grandson of Shem (Gen. 10.24; 11.14); (ii) ʕiḇrî is a geographical term, derived from ʕēḇär ‘across, beyond’, more particularly ʕēḇär han-nāhār ‘beyond the river’ (see especially Josh. 24.2). Depending upon the identity of the river in question, ʕiḇrî is to be understood as ‘trans-Euphrates’ or ‘trans-Jordan’; (iii) As opposed to (i) and (ii), which represent traditional views found in rabbinical sources, especially since the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna letters in the late 19th century it has been not uncommon in Biblical scholarship to find a connection between ‘Hebrew’ and the ḫabiru, groups of roving marauders mentioned in the Tel el-Amarna (and other) documents as having attacked Palestine in the mid-2nd millennium B.C.E.« – »Names of the Hebrew Language« (S. Hopkins), in Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics.
▪ ʕBR_8 : Cf. also ^†maǧlis ʕabr/ʕibr ‘numerous gathering’ – Hava1899. – Etymology obscure.
▪ ʕBR_9 ▪ Cf. also ^†ʕ˅br li-kull ʕamal ‘fit to every work’, ʕ˅br ʔasfār ‘bold traveller; strong to journey (camel)’ – Hava1899. – Etymology obscure.
▪ ʕBR_10-11 : Can ʕBR_10 ^†ʕabūr ‘ewe or goat one year old’ and ʕBR_11 ^†muʕbar ‘thick-woolled (sheep)’ be put together?

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