Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Huehnergard2011, Kogan2011, DRS (#ḤMR-3): from protSem *ḥimār‑ ‘donkey’. – Cf. also Ar ↗ʕayr (from a protWSem *ʕayr‑, synonymous to protSem *ḥimār‑), and ↗ʔitān ‘donkey mare’.
▪ For attempts to explain the donkey as *ʻred animal’, thus linking it to ↗ʔaḥmarᵘ, or as *ʻpack animal, beast of burden’ (from ↗ḤML), or still other suggestions, see below, section DISC. – For fig. and other usage (*‘stupidity’, *‘slowness’, *‘bridge’, …), see section HIST.
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hist

▪ ClassAr ^†ḥammara, vb. II, ʻto call s.o. an ass’: clearly denom.
▪ The same ClassAr vb. II, ^†ḥammara, can also mean ‘to ride a jade’. This usage is prob. from ^†miḥmar ʻhorse of mean race that resembles the ass in his slowness of running’, thus prob. dependent on ḥimār ʻdonkey’.
▪ ClassAr knows ḥimār also in the sense of ^†‘polisher for iron (wooden implement of the polisher, upon which he polishes iron)’ as well as ^†‘piece of wood in the fore part of the saddle called raḥl upon which a woman when riding lays hold, fore part of the saddle called ʔikāf, stick upon which saddles called ʔaqtāb are carried’, and ^†ḥimār al-ṭunbūr ‘(bridge of the mandolin) a thing well-known’. All of them may be fig. use, though it remains unclear in how far a donkey should resemble a bridge, etc. In the case of ^†‘polisher of iron’ and ^†‘piece of wood…’, the actual etymon was prob. not ḥimār, but ^†ḥamara ‘to scrape off, flay (sheep); to shave (the head); to excoriate’; cf. also ^†ḥamīraẗ ʻthong, strap (so called because it is pared)’; see [v12] in root entry ↗ḤMR, as the saddle grip may originally be *‘the skinned one’.
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cogn

▪ Bergsträsser1928: (*‘donkey’) Akk imēru, Hbr ḥmōr, Syr ḥmārā, SAr ḥmr.
▪ DRS 9 (2010) #ḤMR-3 Akk imēr‑, Ug ḥmr, Hbr ḥᵃmōr, EmpAram Palm hmr, ḥᵃmārā, Ar ḥimār, Sab Min ḥmr. – ? Mhr ḥəmūr, Ḥrs ḥəmōr, Jib ḥõr ‘domestiquer, dompter, dresser une monture’, Mhr ḥəmɛ̄r ‘maîtrisé’. -4 Ug ḥmr: unité de mesure, Hbr ḥomȩr ‘monceau’, mesure pour les dattes sèches; JP ḥᵃmar ‘entasser, accumuler’, Ar ʔaḥmara ‘ramasser, réunir de tous côtés’.
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disc

▪ DRS 9 (2010) #ḤMR: On their grouping, the authors remark that »[l]e classement a ici principalement pour but d’ordonner commodément les diverses valeurs. Il n’implique pas toujours des séparations fondamentales. Les valeurs peuvent, pour certaines, être liées à d’autres dont elles constitueraient des emplois métaphoriques.«
▪ DRS (on their #ḤMR-3): »Le nom de l’âne a été expliqué par certains comme *ʻanimal rouge’ [↗ʔaḥmarᵘ], par d’autres comme *ʻanimal porteur, bête de somme’, le rattachant à la notion de ʻcharge’ [↗ḥamala] qui serait attestée en SAr et en Aram. […] Pour Hodge, Fol.Or. 17 (1976): 11, qui compare à l’Eg mr ʻattacher’, ḥ‑ serait une préformative, d’où ʻattaché [avec une charge]’; contre Leslau CDG 234: “ni ḥml ni ḥmr n’existent en Gz …. Le Gz ḥamala ʻtransporter’ est un emprunt à l’Ar.” – Le rapprochement avec les formes signifiant ʻdompter, domestiquer, apprivoiser’ est hautement hypothétique.«
▪ If akin to ↗ʔaḥmarᵘ ʻred’, the word may also be connected, ultimately, to notions of *ʻscraping off, flaying, skinning, excoriating’ (↗√ḤMR [v12]) or *ʻglowing, burning’ (↗√ḤMR [v5] ‘to burn with anger’, [v6] ʻviolent, severe; intense heat’). But this would be highly speculative.
▪ Ar ḥimār (or already protSem *ḥimār‑) ‘donkey’ itself may have influenced the semantics of ↗yaḥmūr (protSem *yaḥmūr‑), which usually signifies a ‘deer, kind of antelope, roebuck’, but occasionally also can mean ʻwild ass, onager’. On this topic, DRS writes (in their comments on #ḤMR-1 ‘red’): »L’Hbr et l’Ar connaissent une forme yaḥmūr en relation avec cette racine. En Hbr, […] il semble s’agir d’une sorte de ʻdaim’ ou de ʻgazelle’. En Ar, outre sa valeur de ʻrouge’, elle désigne, entre autres, 1’ʻonagre’, ce qui a conduit divers lexicographes à en faire un dérivé du nom de 1’ʻâne’; mais il se trouve qu’elle nomme aussi une espèce d’antilope et une espèce d’oiseau. Il paraît donc vraisemblable que cette désignation a plutôt un rapport avec le nom de la couleur«.
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west

▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl homer, from Hbr ḥōmer ‘heap’, a unit of capacity, »unit of volume used by ancient Hebrews for liquids and dry goods. […] 1 homer equals 220 litre or 220dm³. – The homer should not be confused with the omer [Hbr ʕōmär, cf. Ar ↗ʕam˅ra], which is a much smaller unit of dry measure«.¹ – Kogan2015: 594 #15 agrees with Huehnergard2011 on that the word »almost certainly« is derived from Hbr ḥămōr (= Ar ḥimār) ‘donkey’, signifying originally the burden carried by a donkey. However, Kogan thinks that the Hbr measure name ¹ḥōmär ‘homer’ should be kept apart from the homonymous ²ḥōmär ‘heap’, which is perh. akin to Ar ^†ḥimāraẗ ‘mass of stone or rock, any wide stone’, likely identical with Jib ḥɛr̃ ‘mountain’, Soq ḥámər ‘petite montagne’ (↗√ḤMR [v10] ‘ramasser, réunir de tous côtés’, [v15] ‘large rock; tombstone’).
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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer_(unit), as of 03Mar2021.

deriv

►ḥimār al-waḥš and ḥimār waḥšī, n., wild ass, onager;
►samm al-ḥimār, n., oleander (Nerium oleander; bot.)

►ḥimāraẗ, n.f., she-ass, female donkey: f. of ḥimār
►ḥammār, pl.ḥammāraẗ, n., donkey driver: n.prof., from ḥimār.
►yaḥmūr, n., 1 ↗ʔaḥmarᵘ; 2 ↗yaḥmūr; 3 wild ass; 4 ↗ʔaḥmarᵘ.

For other values attached to the root, cf. ↗ḥumar, ↗ʔaḥmarᵘ, ↗yaḥmūr, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√ḤMR.

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