Bibliotheca Polyglotta

1a to dig; 1b to drill (for oil); 1c to excavate (archeol.); 2a to carve; 2b to engrave, etch (metal) | ḥafara ḫanādiqᵃ, vb. I, to dig trenches; ḥafara ḥufraẗ, expr., to prepare a pitfall, prepare an ambush – WehrCowan1976.

conc

▪ From protSem *ḤPR ‘to dig’, widely attested throughout Sem.
▪ The primary meaning of the Sem root is well preserved in Ar ḥafara ‘to dig’, ḥufraẗ ‘pit, cavity, hole’, ʔuḥfūr ‘s.th. excavated; fossil’ etc. In the course of time, however, the vb. has taken on several additional, mostly fig. meanings, such as ^†‘to have sexual intercourse, lie with (a woman)’ (< *to ‘dig’ into her), ^†‘to emaciate’ (said of a young animal vehemently sucking its mother’s breast, ‘digging’ into her and rendering her weak), ^†‘to lose one’s teeth, esp. milk-teeth’ (the teeth leaving a hole when falling out), or ^†‘to paw the ground (said of horses, etc.)’. From the latter is ↗ḥāfir ‘hoof’ (lit., *‘the digging one, digger’) (and from there also idiomatic use of ḥāfir and ↗ḥāfiraẗ, see s.vv.). Further developments along the line *‘to dig > to leave holes, emaciate, render rotten > …’ are ↗ḥafr ‘tartar of the teeth’ and (SyrAr) ‘scurvy’, as well as the EgAr expression ↗ḥafraẗ gafraẗ ‘barren land, desolate area’.

hist

▪ Among the fig. meanings of ‘digging’, cf. also ClassAr †ḥafara ‘to penetrate, have sex (with a woman)’, »the action being likened to that of a man digging a river« (Lane ii 1865).
▪ Cf. also ^†ḥaf(a)r, ^†ḥafīr(ẗ) ‘well that is widened beyond measure’; ^†ḥafīr ‘newly-dug well; grave’; ^†ḥāfara, vb. III, ‘to go deep into a hole/burrow, so deep that one cannot be dug out (said of a jerboa)’ (Lane ii 1865, Hava1899).
▪ eC7 (pit) Q 3:103 wa-kuntum ʕalà šafā ḥufraẗin min-a ’l-nāri fa-ʔanqaḏakum minhā ‘and you were on the brink of a pit of the Fire, and He saved you from it’.
▪ …

cogn

▪ Bergsträsser1928: (*‘to dig’) Akk (ḫpr (i)), Hbr ḥpr a (o), Syr ḥpr a (u), SAr ḥfr.
▪ DRS #ḤPR-1 Akk ḫapāru, ḫepēru, Hbr *ḥāpar, Aram ḥᵊpar, Palm ḥpr, Ar ḥafara, Liḥ ḥafar, Sab Min ḥfr ‘creuser’, Qat ‘enterrer’, Mhr ḥəfūr, Ḥrs ḥəfōr, Jib ḥfɔr, Soq ḥfr ‘creuser’, Jib ḥfərɛ́t, Mhr məḥfərūt, Ḥrs məḥfərōt ‘trou, fosse’; Ar ḥāfir ‘sabot d’une bête’. - ?¹ 2 Hbr ḥāpar ‘épier, espionner; rechercher, explorer’. ‑3–4 […]. -5 Ar ḥāfiraẗ ‘début, état initial, caractère inné’.
▪ …

1. Dillmann 1339 suggère un approchement avec des formes éthiopiennes de PḤR: Gz faḥara, fahara, Tña fäḥarä, Amh farä ‘creuser’ et #ḤPR-2 peuvent être liés. Gesenius souligne le parallélisme avec BQR; de même Palache 32; voir aussi Barth ES 25, WU 57.

disc

▪ The value ‘épier, espionner; rechercher, explorer’ (DRS #ḤPR-2), now obsolete in Ar, is almost certainly fig. use of [v1]/#ḤPR-1 ‘to dig’ (< *‘to dig into a matter’).
▪ For dependence of DRS #ḤPR-5 on [v1]/#ḤPR-1 ‘to dig’, cf. ↗ḥāfiraẗ.
▪ Ehret1995#744 posits an Ar ḥafr (vn.) with the meaning ‘to lie with’ and regards this as an extension in »diffusive« *‑r, derived from a bi-consonantal preprotSem √*ḤP ‘to put down’ < AfrAs *‑ḥaf‑ ‘to lay’.¹ However, ‘to lie with’ is hardly an independent value; rather, it is fig. use of ‘to dig’ (< *a man ‘digging’ into a woman), cf. above, section HIST.
▪ …

1. Other extensions from the same pre-protSem root would be: ↗ḤFʔ, ↗ḤFṢ, ↗ḤFḌ.

west

…

deriv

►ĭnḥafara, vb. VII, pass. of I: N-stem.
►ĭḥtafara, vb. VII, to dig: Gt-stem, focus on the agent/speaker.

► ^BP#3312ḥafr, n., 1a digging, earthwork, excavation (also archeol.); 1b unearthing; 1c drilling (for oil); 2a carving, inscribing (e.g., of letters); 2b engraving, etching; graphic arts (etching, wood engraving); 3 tartar, dental calculus (Mawrid1995); 4 scurvy (SyrAr): vn. I and extended usages, cf. individual entry ↗ḥafr. | ǧahāz al-ḥafr, n., oil rig; oil derrick
► ^BP#3883ḥufraẗ, pl. ḥufar, n.f., 1 pit; 2 hollow, cavity, excavation; 3 hole.
►ḥafriyyaẗ, n.f., 1 digging, excavation; 2 gravure; 3 pl. ḥafriyyāt, excavations (archeol.): f. (pl.) of nisba formation.
►ḥaffār, n., 1 digger; 2 engraver; 3 driller; 4 stone mason: ints. FaʕʕāL for professions | ḥaffār al-qubūr, n., gravedigger.
►ḥafīr, n., dug, dug out, excavated, unearthed: quasi-PP I.
►ḥafīraẗ, pl. ḥafāʔirᵘ, n.f., 1 s.th. excavated or unearthed; 2 pl. excavations (archeol.).
►ʔuḥfūr, pl. ʔaḥāfīrᵘ, 1 s.th. excavated; 2 fossil; 3 pl. excavations (archeol.).
►miḥfar, pl. maḥāfirᵘ, spade: n.instr.
►ḥāfir, pl. ḥawāfirᵘ, n., hoof: lit., *‘digger, the digging one’; for details see individual entry, ↗ḥāfir. | waqaʕa ’l-ḥāfir ʕalà ’l-ḥāfir, expr., to coincide, happen to correspond exactly; ʕalà ’l-ḥāfir, adv., on the spot, right away, at once (of payments): see ↗ḥāfir.
►ḥāfirī, adj., ungular, ungulate: nisba formation from ḥāfir ‘hoof’.
►ḥāfiraẗ, n.f., original condition, beginning: cf. individual entry ↗ḥāfiraẗ. | ʕinda ’l-ḥāfiraẗ, adv., on the spot, right away, at once; raǧaʕa ʔilà ḥāfiratih, expr., to revert to its original state or origin.
►maḥfūr, adj., 1 dug; 2 inscribed, engraved; 3 carved: PP I.

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