Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ While ClassAr lexicographers tend to include ḥiṣn in the large group of “derivatives” from the root ↗ḤṢN with a basic meaning of *ʻto be inaccessible’, Jeffery1938 (following Guidi and Fraenkel) regarded it as a borrowing from Syr ḥesnā ʻfortress’ (with Syr s > Ar ṣ, due to partial assimilation after preceding emphatic ḥ, a folk etymology that made the borrowing “match” the Ar ḥaṣuna ‘to be inaccessible’). Supporting this view, Kogan2015, too, holds that Ar ḥiṣn ‘fortress’ »almost certainly« is an Aramaism.¹ . Moreover, Kogan remarks that »[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.
▪ In DRS, the juxtaposition of the Ar and Aram words suggests that they are cognates, sharing a common etymon. The authors posit a Sem root *√ḤS/ṢN and explain: »En SSem, la racine comporte ṣ comme 2ème consonne radicale«.²
▪ In contrast, Leslau2006 (CDG) thinks that an »Aram.-Syr. origin of Ar ḥiṣn is doubtful since ḥṣn also occurs in SAr.« Along the same line, Belova2009 derives the fuṣḥà term ḥiṣn~huṣn ‘fortress’ from the dialectal YemAr ḥiṣn~huṣn ‘protected place, fortress’, which she seems to regard as a borrowing from SAr or modSAr (see below, section COGN).
▪ ClassAr lexicographers derive also ↗ḥaṣuna ʻto be chaste’, ↗ḥiṣān ʻhorse’ and (ʔabū ’l‑) ↗ḥuṣayn ʻfox’ from ḥiṣn (for details see individual entries).
▪ …

1. However, Kogan does not follow Jeffery in the latter’s comparison of ḥiṣn ‘fortress’ to ḫašuna ‘to be hard, rough’ because, accord. to Kogan, »Ar š does not regularly correspond to s in oAram«; therefore, Kogan argues, the idea that Ar ḥiṣn ultimately might be akin (via Aram ḤSN < Sem *ḪŠN) to Ar ↗ḫašin ‘hard, rough’ »ought to be abandoned« – Kogan2015: 383 fn. 1099. 2. »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.

hist

▪ eC7 Q 59:2 wa-ẓannū ʔanna-hum māniʕatu-hum ḥuṣūnu-hum mina ’llāhi ‘and they thought their fortifications would protect them against God’.
▪ …

cogn

▪ 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’.
▪ Belova2009: Ar ḥisn~huṣn ‘fortress’, YemAr ḥisn~huṣn ‘protected place, fortress’, (Leslau2006 CDG: SAr m-ḥṣn ‘defense work’) Sab ḥṣn ‘to take under protection’, Jib oḥóṣun ‘to build, fortify’, ḥeṣn ‘castle’, Soq ḥoṣon, Gz ḥǝṣn ‘fortress, castle’ (“South Semitic Languaes”, in EALL iv: 300 ff).
▪ …

disc

▪ Jeffery1938, 109-110: »It is only the pl. ḥuṣūn that is found in the Qurʔān, though the denom. vb. ḥaṣṣana occurs participially in v. 14 of the same Sūra. The passages are late and refer to the Jews of Naḍīr near Madina. – The vb. is clearly denom. though the philologers try to derive it from a more primitive ḥṣn ‘to be inaccessible’ (LA, xvi: 275), and Guidi, Della Sede, 579, had seen that ḥiṣn was borrowed from the Syr ḥesnā. Fraenkel, Fremdw, 235, 236, agrees with this on two grounds, firstly on the general ground that such things as fortresses are not likely to have been indigenous developments among the Arabs, and as a matter of fact all the place names compounded with ḥiṣn which Yāqūt collects in his Muʕǧam are in Syria; secondly on philological grounds, for ḥiṣn ‘fortress’ is not from a root ‘to be inaccessible’ but from one ‘to be strong’, which we find in Hbr ḥāsan, Aram ḥᵃsan, Syr ḥsn,¹ of which the Ar equivalent is ḫašana² ‘to be hard, rough’. In the Targums חיסנא is a ‘store’ or ‘warehouse’, but in the Syr ḥesnā is properly a ‘fortress’. The word is frequently used in the old poetry and must have been an early borrowing.«
▪ Leslau2006 (CDG) s.v. Gz ḥəṣn ‘fortress’: »Praetorius, ZDMG 61 (1907) 616 connects Gz ḥəṣn ‘fortress’ with Gz ḥanaṣa ‘build’. Brockelmann 1928:247 compares Syr ḥəsen ‘be strong’, ḥesnā ‘fortress’ with Ar ḥaṣuna ‘be strong’, ḥiṣn ‘fortress’. As for Ar ḥiṣn, Fraenkel 235 (following Guidi) considers it a loanword coming from Syr ḥesnā. He explains Ar ḥiṣn (with ṣ) against Syr ḥesnā (with s) as a folk etymology due to Ar ḥaṣuna ‘be inaccessible’. The Aram.-Syr. origin of Ar ḥiṣn is doubtful since ḥṣn also occurs in SAr. See also Landberg1920: 424 ff.«
▪ Belova2009 : Ar ḥisn~huṣn < YemAr ḥisn~huṣn ‘protected place, fortress’ (“South Semitic Languaes”, in EALL iv: 300 ff).
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1. And perhaps the Eth [Gz] ḥanaṣa ‘to build’. 2. Original has ḫasana. But, as Kogan2015 rightly observes, this must be a printing error.

west

–

deriv

NB: Given that the etymology of several items belonging to √ḤṢN remains unclear so far, the list below contains only those values that seem to be directly related to ḥiṣn. For other values of the root, cf. ↗ḥaṣuna, ↗ḥiṣān, ʔabū ’l- ↗ḥuṣayn, and ↗ʔiḥṣān, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry √ḤṢN.

►ḥiṣn ṭāʔir, n., Flying Fortress

►ḥaṣuna, u (ḥaṣānaẗ), vb. I, 1 to be inaccessible, be well fortified: perh. denom.; 2 ↗²ḥaṣuna.
►ḥaṣṣana, vb. II, 1 to make inaccessible (s.th.); 2 to strengthen (s.th.); 3 to fortify, entrench (s.th.); 4 to immunize, make proof (ḍidda against): D-stem, caus., prob. denom.
►ʔaḥṣana, vb. IV, 1 to make inaccessible (s.th.); 2 to fortify, entrench (s.th.): prob. denom.; 3 ↗²ḥaṣuna.
►taḥaṣṣana, vb. V, 1 to strengthen one’s position, protect o.s.; 2 to be fortified; 3 to be secure, be protected: Dt-stem, intr./pass./self-ref., prob. denom.

►ḥaṣīn, adj., 1 inaccessible, strong, fortified, firm, secure(d), protected; 2 immune, proof, invulnerable (ḍidda against): quasi-PP I. | al-ḥiṣn al‑~, n., stronghold (fig.; e.g., of radicalism).
►ḥaṣānaẗ, n.f., 1 strength, ruggedness, forbiddingness, impregnability, inaccessibility; 2 ↗²ḥaṣuna; 3 invulnerability, inviolability; 4 immunity (of deputies, diplomats; against illness): vn. I of ḥaṣuna, see above and ↗s.v.
►taḥṣīn, n., pl. ‑āt, n., 1 fortification, entrenchment; 2 strengthening, cementing, solidification; 3 immunization: vn. II.
►taḥaṣṣun, n., securing, safeguarding, protection, protectedness: vn. V.
►muḥaṣṣan, adj., 1 fortified; 2 entrenched; 3 immune, proof (ḍidda against): PP II.

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