Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Of obscure etymology. No obvious relation to ↗ḥarakaẗ ʻmovement’ or ↗miḥrāk ʻpoker, fire iron’, but perh. connected to the obsol. ^†ḥarak ʻimpotence’. See DISC below.

hist

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cogn

▪ DRS 9 (2010) #ḤRK-1-3 […]. 4 Ar ḥārik ‘garrot du cheval’, muḥrak ‘extrémité supérieure du cou’.
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disc

▪ Morphologically, Ar ḥārik ‘withers (of a horse)’ is a PA I, suggesting a derivation from a vb. I as *ʻthe …-ing one, the …-ing part of the body’; but there is also ClassAr ^†muḥrak ‘extrémité supérieure du cou’ (DRS), a PP IV, suggesting an interpretation based on an original *ʻpart of the body that is made to …’. None of the values attested for ḤRK in Ar or Sem produces plausible etymologies if put in place of the missing ʻ…’ here. The authors of DRS think ḥārik is akin to ^†ḥarkakaẗ (pl. ḥarākikᵘ, ḥarākīkᵘ) ʻhipbone’ (Steingass1884), with reduplication of R₃ – an interesting observation, though it does not bring more light into the etymology of the item as such, as also ^†ḥarkakaẗ is without cognates outside Ar. A little bit more helpful is the fact that it seems to be possible to draw a line of semantic development from ‘withers; (hipbone)’ to the now obsol. ^†ḥarak ʻimpotence’ (and corresp. adj. and vb. I): the link between ‘withers; (hipbone)’ and ʻimpotence’ may be items such as ^†ḥaraka (u, ḥark) ʻto wound a horse on the withers (Hava1899) / atteindre, blesser qn, lui causer une lésion à la partie ḥārik (BK1860), to beat on the back (Steingass1884) / frapper, porter un coup avec un sabre, etc. (BK1860)’, with the corresponding quasi-PP, ^†ḥarīk ʻdégingandé, qui marche comme s’il était brisé par le milieu, disloqué (BK1860)’. Thus, one could imagine a development *‘to beat on the back, to wound on the withers’ > ‘to walk like s.o. who has been beaten\is wounded’ > ‘to be handicapped’ > ‘to be impotent’. – A bold additional hypothesis: *ʻto beat’ < ʻto move, stir’? If such a development could be established, ḥārik ‘withers’ would be akin to ↗ḥarakaẗ ‘movement’.
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west

–

deriv

For other values attached to the root, cf. ↗ḥarakaẗ and ↗miḥrāk, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√ḤRK.

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