Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ʕṢB_1 ‘nerve; sinew’ ↗ʕaṣab; ‘nervous, neuro‑’ ↗ʕaṣabī; ‘nervosity’ ↗¹ʕaṣabiyyaẗ
▪ ʕṢB_2 ‘to wind, fold, tie, bind; to wrap (the head) with a band, turban, etc.’ ↗ʕaṣaba; ʻband(age), dressing; headcloth, brow band, frontlet; union, league, group, troop, gang’ ↗ʕiṣābaẗ; ʻto take sides, cling obdurately to; fanaticism, ardent zeal, bigotry’ ↗taʕaṣṣub; ʻtribal solidarity, tribalism’ ↗²ʕaṣabiyyaẗ; ʻstrike’ ↗ĭʕtiṣāb
▪ ʕṢB_3 ‘hot, crucial, critical (time, stage)’ ↗ʕaṣīb

Other values, now obsolete, include (Hava1899):
▪ ^†ʕṢB_4 ‘to take by force’: ^†ʕaṣaba (ʕaṣb) (ʕalà s.th.)
▪ ^†ʕṢB_5 ʻto dry in the mouth (saliva); to become unclean (teeth)’: ^†ʕaṣaba, ^†ʕaṣiba (ʕaṣb, ʕuṣūb)
▪ ^†ʕṢB_6 ʻto starve (people: dearth)’: ^†ʕaṣṣaba; cf. also ^†muʕaṣṣab ʻreduced to straitness by dearth’; ^†taʕaṣṣaba ‘to be satisfied (bi‑ with)’
▪ ^†ʕṢB_7 ʻto become red (horizon)’: ^†ʕaṣaba, ^†ʕaṣiba (ʕaṣb, ʕuṣūb); cf. also ^†ʕiṣābaẗ ʻred mist seen in a time of drought’
▪ ^†ʕṢB_8 ‘to walk at a quick pace (camel)’: ^†ʔaʕṣaba
▪ ^†ʕṢB_ ‘’ : …

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘1 tendons, bands, to wrap up; 2 to stick to; 3 gang, partisanship; to gang up; 4 to be prejudiced, prejudice, to be a fanatic; 5 creeper’.

conc

▪ It is not clear whether all items in this root go back to one etymon (‘sinew, nerves, tendons’?) or whether we are dealing with two or more roots that have merged into one in Ar. It seems that previous research does not connect ‘sinew, nerves’ with the other values: SED I (Militarev&Kogan2000), on the one hand, only treats ‘sinew, nerves’ (with cognates in Mhr, Jib, and Te); Leslau2006 (CDG), on the other hand, does not mention ‘sinew, nerves’ at all and instead postulates a belonging together of Ar ʻto bind, fold, tighten’ [ʕṢB_2] as well as Ar ʻto be difficult’ [ʕṢB_3] with Hbr Aram ʻto hurt, pain, grieve’, and EthSem ʻharshness, trouble, distress, hunger, misery’.
▪ If ‘sinew, nerves’ should be related to the other values (which may belong together and be essentially one) the meaning ‘headache’ of Jib ʕaṣbɛ́t, alongside with ‘sinew, nerve’, may indicate a possible point of semantic transition from ‘sinew, nerve’ to the complex of ‘harshness, difficulty, pain, grievance’: according to MilitarevKogan, ‘headache’ could be »a late semantic development« (see below), i.e., the meaning ‘headache’ could be dependent on ‘sinew, nerve’. – In a similar vein, BK1860 interprets the obsol. Ar vb. XII, ^†ĭʕṣawṣaba ʻto gather one’s forces, make the highest effort’, as »proprem. tendre tous ses muscles pour aller au plus vite; de là (fig.) devenir très intense, violent«, in this way bringing together ʻsinews’ (muscles) and ʻintensity, violence’; cf. also the ClassAr expressions ^†ĭʕṣawṣaba ’l-šarr ʻle mal, le malheur, la guerre fut à son apogee’ and ^†ĭʕṣawṣaba ’l-yawm ʻla journée (du combat ou de la chaleur) fut dure’ (BK1860) – see [v3].
▪ If ‘sinew, nerves’ and the other values are etymologically related, one could imagine a semantic development within the root along a hypothetical line such as *ʻsinew, nerves > tightness, contraction > a) to bind, tie, wrap; b) harshness, difficulty, tension, etc.’ or *ʻsinew, nerves > to bind, tie, wrap (with a sinew or) > to tighten up, tightness, contraction, tension > (fig. use) harshness, difficulty, precariousness, (etc.)’. If this should turn out to be untenable, it is perh. only the rather isolated ʻto bind, tighten’ that depends on ‘sinew, nerves’, while ʻharshness, difficulty, pain, etc.’ represent a domain in its own right. The same may hold for the obsolete values ^†ʕṢB_7 ʻto become red (horizon), red mist seen in a time of drought’ and^†ʕṢB_8 ‘to walk at a quick pace (camel)’ both of which seem to be difficult to connect to any of the other values – at first sight, at least (for more details, see DISC below).
▪ For ‘sinew, nerves’, SED I (Militarev&Kogan2000) #16 reconstructs protSem *ʕa(n)ṣab‑ ~ *ʕa(n)c̣ab‑ ‘sinew, nerves’ but simultaneously underlines that the word is »poorly attested in Sem«.

hist

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cogn

▪ Militarev&Kogan2000 (SED I) #16: Mhr ʔāṣbīt, Ḥrs ʔāṣebét ‘sinew, nerve’, Jib ʕaṣbɛ́t ‘dto.; condition of having headaches¹ ’, Ar ʕaṣab (coll.) ‘nerves’, Te ʕanṣäbät, ʔanṣäbät ‘sinew, (Munzinger: nerv, corde)’.
▪ Leslau2006 (CDG): Hbr ʕāṣab ‘to hurt, pain, grieve’ (BDB1906), (Ni) ‘to be grieved’, (Hi) ‘to grieve’, Aram ʕᵃṣaḇ ‘to be grieved’; Ar ʕaṣaba ‘to bind, tighten’, ĭnʕaṣaba ‘to be difficult’; Gz ʕəṣab ‘harshness, rigor, severity, difficulty, trouble, [etc.]’, ʕəṣub, (Y) ʕəḍub ‘hard, harsh, difficult, severe, serious, rough, rugged, harassed, oppressed, troublesome, vehement, grievous, fierce, austere, onerous […]’, Te ʕaṣba ‘to be in distress, suffer from hunger’, Tña ʕaṣäbä ‘to be in misery, be in distress’, Amh aṭṭäbä ‘to be in distress, marvel’, aṣäba ‘poverty, distress’, əṣub ‘distressed, astounding, marvelous’.² – Buhl 609, Baumgartner 818 (following Gesenius and Lagarde)³ also compare Ar ↗ġaḍiba ‘to be angry’ [mentioned also in BDB1906 but qualified as »dubious« parallel there]; to Leslau, a comparison with Ar ↗ṣaʕuba (by metathesis) ‘to be hard, be difficult’ seems more likely.
▪ …

1. »Looks like a late semantic development«. 2. Passed into (Cu) Bil aṣab ‘laborious, troublesome’. 3. Frants Buhl, Wilhelm Gesenius’ Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, bearb. v. F.B., 17^th ed., Leipzig: F.C.W. Vogel, 1921; Walter Baumgartner, Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexicon zum Alten Testament, von Ludwig Koehler und W.B., 3^rd ed., rev. by W.B., Leiden: Brill, 1967

disc

▪ ʕṢB_1 : Militarev&Kogan2000 (SED I) #16 state that the word is »poorly attested in Sem. The modSAr terms may be Arabisms. The Te form is hardly an Ar loan pace. Note modHbr ʕāṣāb ‘nerve’ which does not seem to be attested in early Jewish writings and may be a medieval Arabism.«[(cn :: For Klein1987 the mHbr word is unquestionably »[f]rom Arabic ʕaṣab (= nerve).«]
▪ ʕṢB_2 : As mentioned above (section CONC), the idea of ‘binding, wrapping’ may be derived from ʻnerve, sinew’. BK1860 gives the primary value as ʻceindre tout autour, entourer un lieu (se dit, p.ex., des bestiaux qui entourent une pièce d’eau pour y boire); empoigner, prendre avec la main (de manière que la chose entre toute entière dans la main); saisir, p.ex., plusieurs rameaux ou herbes à la fois, pour les arracher’. In Ar, this basic theme has developed a larger semantic field in its own right, with no similar or directly corresponding developments in Sem (at first sight, at least). Two main lines of development can be distinguished: 1 ‘binding, wrapping’ > ‘headcloth, turban’; 2 ‘binding, wrapping’ > a ‘to stick to, gather around (*tie o.s. to) s.th./s.o.’ > ‘union, group, gang; clan solidarity’, etc.; b ‘to cling obdurately to s.th./s.o.; fanaticism, ardent zeal, bigotry’; ĭʕtiṣāb that was used for a long time to render the Engl ‘strike’ before it became replaced by ↗ʔiḍrāb is prob. a variant of ‘to form a group of fanatic followers’. – Leslau2006 thinks Ar ʕaṣaba ʻto wind, fold, tie, bind, wrap’ should be seen together with the semantic complex of ʻto hurt, pain, grieve; harshness, trouble, distress, hunger, misery’ as found in Hbr, Aram, and EthSem. Obviously meant as a kind of semantic link, he notes Ar vb. VII, ĭnʕaṣaba ‘to be difficult’ (from *ʻto tighten, get denser, contract’?). If this should reflect historical reality, one may feel tempted to connect also values ʕṢB_3-6 to this complex and assume a further development from ‘binding, wrapping’ via *3 ʻto tighten, contract’ into *3a ʻto become critical, crucial (< *suffocating)’ (ʕṢB_3), b ‘to take by force (< *to tighten a siege, intensify one’s attack)’ (^†ʕṢB_4), c ʻto dry in the mouth (saliva), become unclean (teeth) (*< contraction in the mouth)’ (^†ʕṢB_5), d ʻ(*to make s.o. tighten his/her belt =) ʻto reduce to straitness, make people starve, (*to tighten one’s own belt =) to be satisfied’ (^†ʕṢB_6). – Leslau also mentions that earlier research (Buhl, Baumgartner) had proposed a relation between these items and Ar ↗ġaḍiba ʻto be angry, vexed, irritated’, a suggestion Leslau himself is not comfortable with (without giving further reasons). Indeed, the regular correspondence of Ar √ĠḌB in Gz should be √ʕṢ́B, not √ʕṢB. To Leslau, a connection with Ar ↗ṣaʕuba (metathesis) seems more likely.
▪ ʕṢB_3-6 : As discussed in the preceding paragraph, all these values can be thought to be based on ʕṢB_2 ‘to bind, tie, wrap’ etc. There is, however, no clear evidence for such a dependence yet, so that one should not prematurely exclude the possibility of an independent complex *‘to be difficult, harsh, hard, (hence:) pain, suffering, etc.’ (which may be related to ↗√ṢʕB, as considered by Leslau). However, the degree of semantic overlapping between the Hbr Aram EthSem values and Ar ʕaṣīb ‘hot, crucial, critical (time, stage)’, ^†ĭnʕaṣaba ‘to be difficult’, ^†ĭʕṣawṣaba (vb. XII) ‘to be hot, dangerous, grow worse’, as well as the ideas of ʻdearth’, ʻhunger’ and ʻstarvation’ associated with the root suggests a closeness of ʻbinding, wrapping’ and ʻdifficulty, pain’, linked by the notion of ʻto tighten, make dense, be(come) tense, have to tighten one’s belt’. An ultimate dependence on ʕṢB_1 could be plausible in the light of Ar ^†ĭʕṣawṣaba ʻto gather one’s forces, make the highest effort’, interpreted by BK1860 as »proprem. tendre tous ses muscles pour aller au plus vite; de là (fig.) devenir très intense, violent«, in this way bringing together ʻsinews’ (muscles), ʻgathering, contraction’ and ʻintensity, violence’.
▪ ^†ʕṢB_7 : The value ʻto become red (horizon)’, represented by the vb. I ^†ʕaṣaba (ʕaṣb, ʕuṣūb), does, at first sight, not seem to be related to any other value found in the root. Cf., however, the n.f. ^†ʕiṣābaẗ ʻred mist seen in a time of drought’ in which the redness of the air is connected to a ʻtime of drought’. Thus, it may be related to the ʻheat’ of ʕṢB_3 and/or the ʻhunger, starvation, dearth’ of ^†ʕṢB_6, i.e., ultimately, depend on ʻdifficulty, hardship, etc.’.
▪ ^†ʕṢB_8 : The meaning ‘to walk at a quick pace (camel)’ is expressed with the help of a vb. IV, ^†ʔaʕṣaba. Given that form IV often produces causatives, it seems possible that ‘to walk at a quick pace’ originally is *ʻto accelerate, hasten, increase one’s speed (< intensify it, make it “tighter”)’. Should this be correct, the value would belong to ʕṢB_2 as a further notion developed from *3 ʻto tighten, contract’. BK1860 interprets the meaning ʻmarcher avec vitesse’ as »proprem. tendre tous les muscles à cet effet«, an explanation that connects the value to both ʕṢB_1 ʻnerve, sinew’ and ʕṢB_2 ʻto bind, tie, tighten’.
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