▪ ʕRB_1 : Jan Retsö has written a whole book about the question who the
ʕarab ‘Arabs’ actually were (
The Arabs in Antiquity, Retsö2003). His thorough investigation into the pre-Isl sources concludes with the finding that they started out as »a group of initiates of a fellowship of warriors or guards around a divinity« (Retsö2003: 596). Consequently, Retsö tends to interpret the n.gent.
ʕarab as related to ʕRB in the sense of *‘to enter’ which many consider to be the very basic value of the root in Sem. Thus, in Retsö’s opinion, the name originally carried a meaning that was close to one of the values the Akk
erēbu could take, namely ‘to enter in the presence (of a god, king, etc.)’. With this, the n.gent. would also be close to the idea of a ‘pledge’ and of ‘giving s.th. or o.s. as guarantee, standing surety or bail, stepping in for s.o.’ that may be dependent on the basic ‘to enter’ and of which MSA
ʕarraba ‘to give earnest money’,
ʕarabūn ‘pledge, token’ (
ʕRB_3) and
ʕarrāb ‘godfather’ (
ʕRB_4) are reflexes. Earlier theories, all dismissed by Retsö as little convincing, would connect the ethnonym with the
ʕArabaẗ (
ʕRB_28) region, or with the notion of *‘mixing’ (the Arabs as *‘mixed company’ or, more negatively, a ‘swarm’), or with its opposite, the *‘purity and nobility’ (
ʕRB_18) of descent, or with *‘vehemence, excess’ (to have sex’ –
ʕRB_12, to eat a lot, devour –
ʕRB_14), or (by metathesis) with the ‘Hebrews’ (√
ʕBR), by which the Arabs like the Hebrews are essentially seen as *‘the nomads, those who traverse, cross, wander around’ or *‘those who come from, or inhabit, the other side of the river, the region beyond’. – For further details cf. entry ↗
ʕarab. —
Derivatives: In the meaning ‘to make Arabic, Arabicize, translate into Arabic’ the D-stem
ʕarraba is with all likelihood denominative from
ʕarab. For another value cf. next paragraph. – In the *Š-stem
ʔaʕraba the notions of ‘Arabicity’, ‘expression’ and ‘clarity, purity’ often overlap, particularly when
ʔaʕraba takes the specific meaning of ‘pronouncing the final accents of a word, using desinential inflection (i.e., the ↗
ʔiʕrāb)’. In these cases, the vb. has been interpreted as denominative from ‘Arab(ic)’ in the sense of *‘to make (one’s language obey to the rules of correct) Arabic’. According to Olivieri2020, this usage is a calque from Grk
hellēnismós (in the Stoic tradition). Such a develeopment was certainly facilitated by the fact that it fitted well also with the notions of ‘(clear) expression’ and ‘purity, clarity’ (see below).
▪ ʕRB_2
ʕarraba,
ʔaʕraba ‘to express’: This value can be thought to derive from the basic idea of *‘vehemence’, an expression being an *‘ex pression’, an act of releasing s.th. that had been locked inside where it had built up a pressure, a *‘letting flow, giving way’, or an *‘outburst, eruption’ (of passion, vitality, agility, passion, emotion, affect, etc., from *‘mixture, confusion’). Gabal2012 (III:1472) even identifies the »virulence/activity and outburst with inner vehemence in order to release what is imprisoned« (
našāṭ wa-’nṭilāq bi-ḥiddaẗ ḏātiyyaẗ lil-ḫulūṣ mimmā yuḥbas) as the basic value of √ʕRB as such.
1
With this, the value is closely related to the ‘swift river’ (
ʕRB_5), the ‘abundance (of water)’ (
ʕRB_7), the passion and affection in the adj. ‘loving, pleasing’ (
ʕRB_10) or the one accompanying sexual intercourse (
ʕRB_12), the expression of negative sentiments in the ‘foul speech, obscene talk’ (
ʕRB_13), as well as the confusion of a ‘corrupt, disordered’ stomach (
ʕRB_15) and the ‘swelling’ of such a stomach or the ‘breaking up’ of purulent wounds (
ʕRB_16); combined with the idea of ‘clarity’ (
ʕRB_18) we get ‘to express clearly’ which, according to Retsö, could also be the idea behind that of ‘stepping in (for s.o.)’ (
ʕRB_3), interpreted as from *‘to speak out (
ʕan on behalf of s.o.)’. – Apart from that, there may be interference from √ʕBR (showing BR instead of RB), where ↗
ʕibāraẗ, which also means ‘expression’, is based on a similar idea of ‘letting out, releasing’, but with more attention to the action of crossing (↗
ʕabara) than on that of vehemence.
▪ ʕRB_3 : The MSA vb. II
ʕarraba ‘to give earnest money, make a down payment’ has preserved the Sem 3-cons. root while elsewhere the theme is treated as attached to 4-rad. √ʕRBN, from ↗
ʕurbūn ~
ʕarabūn (ClassAr also
†ʕurbān ~
ʕurubbān ‘earnest money, down payment’), hence the denom.
ʕarbana, vb. I, ‘to give earnest money, give a handsel, make a down payment’, synonymous with
ʕarraba.
2
While Ar
ʕurbūn ~
ʕarabūn without doubt is an inner-Sem borrowing (prob. from Syr
3
),
ʕarraba is not necessarily derived from this and reduced back to 3 radicals, but probably reflects the older Sem *ʕRB ‘to stand surety or bail for, guarantee’, perh. from Sem *ʕRB ‘to enter’ (but this is doubted). However that may be, the value is widespread in (C)Sem and can count as one of the oldest in the whole spectrum of meanings attached to the root (cf. the cognates given above in section CONC). With Retsö2003 one could also think of an original meaning of *‘to speak out (
ʕan on behalf of)’, so that the value could be interpreted as if from *‘expression’ (
ʕRB_2) and *‘clear’ (
ʕRB_18). – Closely related to the idea of a pledge is also that of
†ʕarābaẗ ~
ʕirābaẗ ‘contract, treaty’ (+ the denom. vb.s II and IV,
ʕarraba and
ʔaʕraba, ‘to change, barter; to make a contract’). –
ʕRB_4 ʕarrāb ‘godfather’ clearly belongs together with ʕRB_3. – For Engl
arbiter and
earnest as borrowings from Sem, see below, section WEST.
▪ ʕRB_4
ʕarrāb ‘godfather, sponsor’ : a specialisation of the preceding (
ʕRB_3), with all likelihood borrowed from Syr
ʕurāb(t)ā ‘surety sponsor, god-parent; security, bail’ (cf. Hava1899’s classification of
ʕarrāb ‘godfather’,
ʕarrābaẗ ‘godmother’ as LevAr; Dozy, too, classifies it as of Syr origin). Cf. also Syr
ʕreb ‘to promise solemnly, be surety, give security, pledge o.s.; (with
b-,
l-,
ʕal-)
esp. to stand sponsor (at baptism)’.
▪ ʕRB_5
ʕarabaẗ ‘swift river’ : In our opinion, the ‘river that flows with a vehement, strong current’ reflects one of the earliest values that developed out of the basic Sem *ʕBR ‘mixture’, namely *‘briskness, liveliness, vehemence’, which is preserved in ClassAr
†ʕar(a)b; cf. also the corresponding vb. I, [F]
†ʕariba a (
ʕarab) ‘alacer, lubens fuit’. Perhaps also
†ʕurbānaẗ ‘(a sort of) lizard’ ([F] ‘lacerta agilis’,
ʕRB_9) belongs here (on account of the animal’s agility, but see below for another theory), possibly (fig. use?) also
†ʕarabaẗ ‘soul, mind’ (
ʕRB_8). The value ‘swift river’ could also be seen as a specilisation of
ʕRB_7 ‘abundance (of water)’, although the latter may of course be also be a generalisation of the former; it is certainly also related to the notion of *‘release, setting free, outburst’ on which of
ʕRB_2 ‘to express’ is built.
▪ ʕRB_6
ʕarabaẗ ‘carriage, wagon, cart, coach’ : According to art. “Araba” in
EI² (G.L.M. Clauson, M. Rodinson), the word was introduced into Ar in Mamluk Egypt via Tu (where it is first attested in C14), although the latter is in itself a corruption of Ar
ʕarrādaẗ, properly ‘ballista [stone-throwing machine], military siege weapon’, but hence also ‘gun, mobile gun, carriage carrying a gun’ > ‘wagon, cart’.
4
Rolland2014a however lists some more suggestions that have been made: »Pour Al-Tûnji, du Pers
arāba ‘voiture, char; roue’. / Pour Nourai, qui croit que l’emprunt s’est fait dans le sens inverse, le mot arabe serait isu du Grk
hárma ‘char de combat ou de course’. / Pour Nişanyan, du Skr
rátha via l’Av
ratha ‘char tire par un cheval’.
5
Sa forme actuelle serait issue d’une forme intermédiaire hypothétique *
ʕarrādaẗ.«
▪ ʕRB_7 : The value ‘abundance (of water)’ is represented in items such as ClassAr
†ʕarab ~
ʕarib ‘[F L H] abundant water, such as is clear, or limpid’,
†ʕarib ‘(well, river) containing/yielding much water, abundance of water’, (denom. vb. I)
†ʕariba a (
ʕarab) ‘to abound with water (well), to swell (river)’,
†ʕārib ‘[F] profundum (flumen), [H] swollen, overflowing (river)’,
†ʕarīb ‘[F] multa aqua’,
†ʕurbub ‘[F] multa aqua pura’. – Cf. also [W]
†ʕarraba ‘viel und süßes reines Wasser trinken’. – The value is closely related to, and often overlapping with, that of *‘outburst, gushing out’ (
ʕRB_2 ‘expression’); it can be thought to be the “master value” of ‘swift river’ (
ʕRB_5), though it could in its turn be an extension/generalization of the latter; the same applies for ‘(to be/make) clear, limpid, clean’ (
ʕRB_18) which sometimes goes together with ‘abundance (of water)’, as in
†ʕurbub ‘abundant water, such as is clear, or limpid’. An ‘abundance’ of a specific type of “water”, pus, is the background of ‘to become swollen and purulent, break up again after heal (wound)’ (
ʕRB_16) and perh. also of the ‘corrupt, disordered (and therefore swollen)’ stomach’ (
ʕRB_15).
▪ ʕRB_8
†ʕarabaẗ ‘soul, mind’ : prob. fig. use of
ʕRB_5 ʕarabaẗ ‘swift river’, taking the quickness and vitality as the tertium comparationis that allows the transfer of meaning from ‘river’ to ‘mind’.
▪ ʕRB_9
†ʕurbānaẗ ‘(a sort of) lizard’ : related to
ʕRB_5 ʕarabaẗ ‘swift river’ and the notion of ‘swiftness, agility’? – A relation with
†ʔirbiyān ‘[F] locusta marina, [̄L] a species of fish resembling worms’ is rather unlikely, both phonologically (
ʕ ≠
ʔ) and semantically (‘lizard’ ≠ ‘locust’
6
).
▪ ʕRB_10
†ʕarūb ‘loving, pleasing, of matching age’, cf. also (denom.) vb. IV,
†ʔaʕraba ‘[F] matrimonium iniit cum femina
ʕarūb appellata’; should we also compare [LZ] DaṯAr
ʕarab li- ‘être bon pour’? – Jeffery1938 followed Sprenger in assuming thought that the word was borrowed from Hbr: »The word is found only in an early Meccan passage [Q 56:37] describing the delights of Paradise, where the ever-virgin spouses are
ʕuruban ʔatrāban which is said to mean that they will be ‘well pleasing’ to their Lords and ‘of equal age’ with them. / The difficulty, of course, is to derive it from the Ar root ʕRB, which does not normally have any meaning which we can connect with
ʕarūb in this sense. For this reason Sprenger,
Leben, ii: 508, n., suggested that it was to be explained from Hbr ʕRB, one of the meanings of which is ‘to be sweet, pleasing’, used, e.g., in Ez. xvi, 37; Cant, ii, 14, very much as in the Qurʔānic passage. So in the Targums
ʕārēḇ means ‘sweet, pleasing’ (Levy,
TW, ii, 240), but the word is not a common one, and it is not easy to suggest how it came to the Arabs. It is commonly used in the old poetry, which would point to an early borrowing.« ▪ However, even if we disregard Luxenberg’s view that the Qurʔānic
ʕurub is a complete misreading
7
and still think of the word as forming part of the more genuine Ar vocabulary, we do not need to go outside Ar in order to find a plausible semantic context to which
ʕarūb could belong. Cf. the fact that it not only can mean a woman ‘who manifests love to her husband and is obedient to him’, but also one ‘who loves him
passionately, or
excessively, or who manifests love to him, evincing passionate, or excessive, desire’, as well as one ‘who uses amorous gesture or behaviour, and
coquettish boldness, with feigned coyness or
opposition, or who makes a show of, or act with, lasciviousnes or passionately loving’ [L]; therefore F has also ‘
rebellis contra maritum’ (my emphasis – SG). Considering these notions,
ʕarūb can easily be derived from the idea of *‘vehemence (passion, emotion, affect, etc.)’ ▪ To this one can probably connect
ʕRB_12 †ʕarraba, vb. II, ‘[F] libidine accendit (taurus vaccam), [W] brünstig machen (der Stier die Kuh) [to incite with lust]’, and
†ĭstaʕraba, vb. X, ‘[F] appetivit marem (vacca), [L] to desire the bull (said of a cow)’. The corresponding *Š-stem,
†ʔaʕraba, vb. IV, can even mean the act of copulating (‘[F] inivit
feminam ’), and LZ reports that »chez les Bédouins du Yémen«, i.e., in YemAr,
†ʕarab is the regular verb for ‘to have sex, [
vulg. ] to fuck’. ▪ Retsö2003: 599 (n.28) thinks that the latter, together with the vn.
†ʕarābaẗ ‘coition’, »must be a survival of the ancient meaning«, i.e., of Sem ʕRB *‘to enter’. However, the essential element in ‘arousing the partner’s sexual appetite’ seems to be the fact that it is done
passionately, with a
clear manifestation of desire; this is why there is semantic overlapping with ‘to speak out, express’ (
ʕRB_2) and ‘clarity’ (
ʕRB_18), and perh. even with ‘pledge, to stand in for s.o.’ (
ʕRB_3), cf. the frequent interpretation of sexual stimulation as being effected by speaking and pleading or acting in a manner that expresses one’s desire (
†ʔaʕraba ‘[F] indicavit oblique verbis huius rei desiderium (feminae), [H] to afford [
bi- clear arguments], [L] to plead one’s cause, speak and plead for the object of one’s want, speak of that act in an oblique, or indirect, manner’). – If
†ʕarūbaẗ (
ʕRB_11) originally is ‘Venus’ then there may also be a relation of
†ʕarūb to the Evening Star and thus to *‘evening, sunset’, perh. from *‘to enter’.
▪ ʕRB_11
†ʕarūbaẗ (so also in DaṯAr) ‘(an old, pre-Isl name for) Friday’ : Syr
ʕarūbətā ‘id.’. – L notes that »accord. to some, it is most chastely without the article; thus it occurs in old poetry of the Time of Ignorance; and it is thought to be not Arabic; and said to be Arabicized from the Nabataean
ʔarubā […]; accord. to others, the article is inseparable from it; and its meaning, accord. to Ibn al-Naḥḥās, is ‘the manifest and magnified’, from
ʔaʕraba ‘he made clear, plain’, etc.; or accord. to an authority cited in the R, its meaning is ‘mercy’«. All these explanations are easily identifiable as late attempts to give some meaning to s.th. that wasn’t understood any longer. In contrast to this tradition, Western research had for a long time assumed that
ʕarūbaẗ was derived from Sem *ʕRB ‘to enter, set (sun)’, meaning *‘the evening (before Saturday)’, corresponding to Hbr
ʕäräḇ šabbāṯ ‘evening before Sabbath’.
8
Rotter1993 modifies this assumption when he interprets the item as a name for ‘Venus’, the ancient deity of the evening star, the planet Venus. As a name for ‘Friday’,
ʕarūbaẗ in his view thus corresponded to the Roman term for Friday, Lat
dies Veneris (whence Fr
vendredi, It
venerdì, etc.). – Although this theory is not without some appeal and persuasive power, esp. when seen in the context of the other names for pre-Isl weekdays discussed by Rotter and framed by the idea of a shared heritage of Late Antiquity, it does not account for the fact that all other Ar items belonging to the ‘sunset, evening, west’ complex show /
ġ /, not /
ʕ / as first radical. Therefore, if the identification of
ʕarūbaẗ with Venus shall be maintained we will either have to assume a borrowing in this meaning from a Sem lang that has preserved initial /
ʕ / – but is there such a *ʕRB ‘Venus’ outside Ar? –, or derive the meaning ‘Venus’ from another value than that of Sem ‘sunset, evening, west’. Here, Ar
†ʕarūb ‘loving, pleasing, affectionate (woman)’ (
ʕRB_10) somehow suggests itself. As we saw in the preceding paragraph, Jeffery would tend to see also this item as foreign; but there is no real need to do so. Thus,
†ʕarūbaẗ ‘Friday’ could indeed originally be the *‘Day of Venus’, but ‘Venus’ here would just be *‘the loving, affectionate one’, derived from
†ʕarūb by extension in f. ending
aẗ, along the line *‘(clear expression of) emotion, affect < vehemence < mixture (? < to enter)’.
▪ ʕRB_12
†ʕarraba ‘to incite with lust, arouse (a partner’s) sexual appetite, [F] libidine accendit (
taurus vaccam), [W] brünstig machen (
der Stier die Kuh)’ and
†ʔaʕraba ‘to copulate, have sex’,
†ĭstaʕraba ‘to desire the bull (said of a cow)’, [LZ] YemAr
ʕarab ‘(
vulg.) to fuck’ : Given that the Ar words are the same as those signifying value
ʕRB_2, ʕRB_12
†ʕarraba seems to be a special meaning of ‘to show one’s emotions, express one’s feelings, give way to one’s affects, instincts, etc.’. One could however also think of
†ʕarraba as denom. caus. from
†ʕarūb (
ʕRB_10), i.e., lit., *‘to make (a partner) behave as a
ʕarūb, i.e., as s.o. who shows (passionate) affection’. For Retsö, the *Š-stem
ʔaʕraba in the meaning ‘to penetrate’ is derived from Sem *ʕRB ‘to enter’.
▪ ʕRB_13
†ʕarābaẗ ~
ʕirābaẗ (~ [W]
ʕurābaẗ) ‘foul speech, obscene talk’, hence (?) also
†ʕarraba ‘[F] turpia dixit (
in aliquem) / [W] zotig, gemein reden, gemeine Rede brauchen (
ʕalà gegen); [F] turpia esse dixit (
verba vel facta) / [W] (jd-s Worte/Taten) für gemein erklären; [H] to point out (
ʕalà to s.o.) the unseemliness of s.th.’;
†ʔaʕraba (vb. IV),
†taʕarraba (vb. V),
†ĭstaʕraba (vb. X) ‘turpiter et obscoene locutus fuit’ : In this value we have an overlapping of a number of notions that all can be thought to be based on the basic ideas of *‘mixture’ and *‘vehemence’. From the former we can draw a line *‘mixture’ > ‘(to be) corrupt, disordered (stomach)’ (
ʕRB_15) > ‘to swollen and purulent (wound), pus’ (
ʕRB_16) > *‘stinking like pus’ > *‘foul, obscene’ > ‘foul speech, obscene talk’. From *‘vehemence’ we get ‘abundance’ (as in
ʕRB_7 ‘abundance of water’) > *‘excess’ (as in
ʕRB_14 ‘to eat too much/fast, devour’) > *‘eruption of what had been kept closed inside (emotions, etc.)’ > ‘expression’ (
ʕRB_2), and if the ‘expression’ is too vehement its ‘clarity’ (
ʕRB_18) becomes offensive, obcene, too blunt.
▪ ʕRB_14 [F,L,W]
†ʕaraba i (
ʕarb) ‘to eat (much), devour’, [LZ] DaṯAr
ʕarab ‘être glouton, grand mangeur’,
ʕarūb ‘dévorateur, qui dévore, qui a la fringale’ : While we tend to see this item as derived from the basic idea of *‘vehemence’, then also ‘excess(iveness)’ and ‘(clear expression of) intense desire’ (cf.
ʕRB_2 and
ʕRB_12 above), LandbergZettersteen1942 wonders whether we aren’t possibly dealing with a case of metathesis here so that ʕRB_14 actually is from Sem √RʕB, cf. Hbr :
rāʕēḇ ‘to be very hungry, voracious; to desire intensely’, Gz
rəʔāba ‘to be hungry’, Ar ↗
raġiba ‘to desire, crave for’ (perh. also Akk
barû ~
berû ‘to be hungry, starve’, Copt
lībe ‘to go mad for, desire intensely’ – so Jensen, acc. to Gesenius1915 s.r. Hbr RʕB).
▪ ʕRB_15 : As already mentioned above,
†ʕarab ‘corruption, disorder (of the stomach, due to indigestion, etc.)’ and the corresponding adj. (
†ʕarib ‘bad, corrupt, disordered (stomach)’
9
) and vbs. (
†ʕariba ‘to be disordered (stomach); to become disordered in the stomach by indegestion (s.o.)’,
†ʕarraba ‘[F] aegrotum reddidit aliquem (
stomachi corruptio), [L] to treat medically, remove the disease of s.o. whose stomach is in a corrupt, disordered state’) seem to be reflexes of the basic idea of *‘mixture, confusion, turbulence’ from which also other values attached to √ʕRB probably are derived, particularly those related to *‘vehemence’.
▪ ʕRB_16
†ʕariba a (
ʕarab) ‘[L] to become swollen and purulent (a camel’s hump), [F H W] intumuit et purulentum fuit (
vulnus), [L] to become corrupt, break open again, [F L H] to leave a scar (wound), have a scar remaining after it has healed’ : The easiest way to explain this value would be to regard it as an extension of the former, the essential ‘disorder, corruption’ of
ʕRB_15 leading to a swelling and eventually breaking up (cf. also
ʕRB_2 ‘expression, (vehement) release of what had been locked inside’). – Cf., however, Ehret1995#695 where
ʕariba ‘to swell and suppurate’ is interpreted as an extension in »extendative« *
-b from a 2-cons. pre-protSem root nucleus *
ʕr ‘to be raised’ (< AfrAs *
ʕir ‘to be raised; sky’; cf. also ↗
ʕaraǧa ‘to ascend, mount, rise’,
†ʕarada ‘to shoot up, grow’, ↗
ʕaraša ‘to build, erect a trellis’, D-stem ‘to roof over’). – See also
ʕRB_17.
▪ ʕRB_17 [LZ] DaṯAr
ʕurbiyyaẗ ‘aîne; bubon’ (inguinal region, groin; turgor of lymph node) : likely to be akin to ‘swelling’ (
ʕRB_16, < *‘corruption, disorder < mixture, confusion’).
▪ ʕRB_18
†ʕarab ~
ʕarib and also (with double
-b-b for intensification)
†ʕurbub ‘[F] multa aqua pura / [L] abundant water, such as is clear, or limpid’ : As mentioned above, the idea of ‘clarity, purity’ can be thought to be derived, ultimately, and almost ironically, from what may seem to be its very opposite: *‘mixture, confusion’, along the hypothetical line *‘clear < clear water < abundance of clear water < abundance of water < abundance < excess(iveness) < vehemence < turbulence < confusion, mixture’. If this etymology should be correct, ‘clarity, purity’ is akin to the ‘abundance (of water)’ (
ʕRB_7) and the ‘swift river’ (
ʕRB_5) as well as the *‘outburst’ of
ʕRB_2, which can also be seen as a kind of *‘clearing’. In contrast, Ehret1989#33 would tentatively interpret
ʕaraba (vn.
ʕarab) in the (related?) meaning
†‘to separate, put by, put aside’ [which I however was unable to confirm from my own sources – S.G.] as an extension in »extendative« *
-b from a pre-protSem 2-cons. root nucleus *
ʕr ‘to take out, remove’.
10
–
Extended / figurative use: As mentioned above, the idea of *‘clarity, purity’ was then also transferred into many other contexts: “making clear/clearing, purifying” in this way coming to mean ‘pruning palm-trees’, ‘scarifying horses’, ‘expressing s.th./o.s. clearly’ (overlapping here with
ʕRB_2 ‘expression’), ‘speaking correctly, without mistakes; using the ↗
ʔiʕrāb ’, ‘reproaching, upbraiding s.o. (i.e., pointing out
clearly the faults in s.o.’s behavior)’, etc.; ‘purity’ was also identified with purity of descent, hence ‘nobility’ (
†ʕurb ‘noble horse’,
†ʕarab ‘purity of race’), and all these notions also merged with ‘Arabness’ (
ʕRB_1; cf. the expression
†ʕarab ʕaribaẗ /
-āt /
ʕāribaẗ are for ‘genuine Arabs = Arabs of pure descent’), so that, e.g.,
ḫayl †ʕirāb not only are ‘noble horses’ but also ‘noble
Arabian horses’, and ‘to express o.s. clearly’ became synonymous with ‘to use pure and correct Arabic’ and ‘to make one’s speech truly Arabic’. – With all probability also
†ʕarabī ‘white/excellent’ as a characterisation of high-quality barley (
ʕRB_19) is just a specific application of ‘purity’ on this type of corn.
▪ ʕRB_19
†ʕarabī ‘white/excellent barley, [F] Hordeum praestantissimum, album, cuius grana duplicem seriem formant’ : properly *‘pure’ barley and thus special use of
ʕRB_18?
▪ ʕRB_20
†ʕirb ‘dried
buhmà plant’, a species of barley-grass, or any dried herb leguminous plant : etymology obscure. Any connection with the idea of ‘purity’ (
ʕRB_18) or in particular the ‘white/excellent barley’ of the preceding paragraph (
ʕRB_19)? Or, given the fact that the plant is dry, is there a relation to the notion of *‘aridity’ that some researchers (though not without opposition) found to be reflected in the n.topogr. ↗
ʕArabaẗ (
ʕRB_18)?
▪ ʕRB_21 [LZ] DaṯAr
ʕurb ~
ʕurub ‘ordre, arrangement, convenance, résultat’ : etymology obscure. Any connection to the idea of ‘matching (age)’ that is sometimes attached to the ‘loving, pleasing’ virgins of paradise (see
ʕRB_10 above)?
▪ ʕRB_22 EgAr
ʕarbaẗ, pl.
ʕurab ‘
1 quarter tone;
2 device for adjusting the tone of the strings of the ↗
qānūn (
mus.)’ (BadawiHinds1986) : metathesis from RBʕ ‘four’ (↗
ʔarbaʕ),
rubʕ ‘quarter’?
▪ ʕRB_23
†ʕarāb(aẗ) ‘fruit of the
ḫazam tree’ : accord. to F,L,Ǧ ropes used to be made of the bark of these trees, and from the fruits were made prayer-beads; accord. to Ǧ, these fruits taste bitter so that humans only ate them in times of famine (if at all), while monkeys did not refuse them. – Etymology obscure; Ǧ relates the item to the idea of strength/intensity and sharpness, either because of the fruit’s bitter taste or the solidity of the ropes made of the
ḫazam bark.
▪ ʕRB_24
†ʕarābaẗ ‘bag with which the udder of a sheep, or goat, is covered’,
†ʕarrāb ‘arâba maker’: etymology obscure.
▪ ʕRB_25
†ʕurūbāʔᵘ ‘(a name of) The Seventh Heaven’: probably (though phonologically unclear) from, or at least akin to, Targ
ʕᵃrāḇôṯ (Ps. LXVIII, 5) ‘(a poetical name for) heaven, (Talm) Araboth, name of the seventh heaven (in which dwell Righteousness, Justice etc.)’ (as found in Jastrow1903), which is a pl., prob. used figuratively, of the word for the Jordan Rift Valley, the Wādī ↗
ʕArabaẗ (
ʕRB_28).
▪ ʕRB_26 DaṯAr
taʕārīb ‘tetragonal stones’ : Should we conform Sab
ʕrbw ‘to build with tetragonal stones’,
mʕrbt ‘Quaderstein’ – Müller2010? Any relation (by metathesis) to ↗
ʔarbaʕ ‘four’?
▪ ʕRB_27
†ʕarib,
ʕarīb ‘somebody’, as in the expression
mā bi’l-dāri ʕarīb ‘there is nobody at home’ : etymology obscure.
▪ ʕRB_28
(wādī) al-ʕArabaẗ ‘the Arabah’ (depression to the south of the Dead Sea, Jordan Rift Valley): »The
Lisān al-ʕArab explains it as ‘the river with a strong current’ [
ʕRB_5] comparing it to the expression
nahr ʕarib, ‘river with abundant water’ [
ʕRB_7]. The Hbr word
(hā)-ʕaraba (with or without the definite article; pl.
ʕarabot, construct
ʕarbot) occurs in the Old Testament as a name for the Jordan Valley between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea (2 Samuel 2:29, Deuteronomy 3:17, 4:49, Joshua 12:1, 3), especially in the southern part of the valley, where
ʕarbot yerīḥo (Jericho) and
ʕarbot moab (Moab) lie on the west and east banks of the river respectively (e.g., Numbers 22:1, 26:3, Deuteronomy 34:1, Joshua 4:13, 5:10). The Dead Sea is sometimes referred to as ‘The Sea of the ʕArabah” (e.g., Deuteronomy 3:17, Joshua 3:16). Unfortunately, the Hbr etymology is as uncertain as the Ar but perh. related to [Hbr]
ʕarabah ‘willow’ (Koehler/Baumgartner Lexicon 1:879–80) [Ar ↗
ġarab]« – art. “ʕAraba, Wādī” (J. Retsö), in
EI³. – Cf., however, Jastrow1903, BDB1906, Klein1987 who assume a basic notion of *‘aridity’ from which Hbr
ʕᵃraḇ ‘desert-plateau, steppe’,
ʕᵃrāḇāʰ, Syr
ʕārābā ‘desert-plain, desert, wilderness, steppe’ (and perh.—metath.—also Gz
ʕabəra ‘to be arid, sterile’, but dubious!) allegedly are derived; to this, these authors then also tend to put the n.gent.
ʕarab (
ʕRB_1) as the *‘steppe-dwellers’. The idea of a basic *‘aridity’ has been refuted on account of the fact that the Jordan valley is not arid, but rather green and fertile; cf., however, the fact that
ʕᵃrāḇôṯ also can mean the Araboth steppes in Babylonia (Jastrow1903) and Syr
ʕarab ‘part of N Mesopotamia between Tigris and Nisibis and around Edessa’. Should there be any basic *ʕRB ‘aridity’ and a relation between this and the ʕArabaẗ, then one may have to compare Sem *ʕRW/Y ‘to be naked’ (Akk
erû ‘naked; empty; empty-handed, destitute’, Ug
ʕrw ‘to be naked, empty; to be destroyed’, Hbr
ʕārāʰ ‘to be naked, bare’, Phoen D-stem ‘to lay bare’, Ar ↗
ʕariya ‘to be naked, nude, bare’, etc.—all over Sem, exept Gz). As for the association between ʕArabaẗ and the Arabs, this is »probably a folk etymology, based on phonetic similarity« – art. “ʕAraba, Wādī” (J. Retsö), in
EI³.
EtymArab
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