Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ The fact that in mSAr some words belonging to ↗ḤWR actually denote ‘blackness’ and that in Ar, ḥawar means a marked contrast between black and white, can lead one to the assumption that it was this contrast that was the original value, ‘white’ and ‘black’ both being later specialisations. Most scholars, however, assume ‘white’ to be the more original value (and ‘black’ from a distinct origin?). On account of the Ar, Hbr and Aram evidence, Huehnergard2011 reconstructs CSem *ḥwr ‘to be(come) white’. Kogan2008 seems to be more reluctant: he does not exclude the possibility that the Ar forms meaning ‘white’ etc. may be Aramaisms (from ComAram *ḥwr ‘to be white’); if they are independent developments, however, Huehnergard’s hypothesis becomes operative. – In any case, we are dealing with a regional, not a general Sem phenomenon. The protSem designation for ‘white’ seems to have been *lbn (↗laban ‘milk’). In Ar, this has been replaced almost entirely by forms of the root ↗BYḌ (which is probably from ↗bayḍ ‘egg’). For ḤWR, the dominance of BYḌ meant (accord. to DRS) a restriction in use to poetry where it came to signify the black pupils or the black of the eyes in contrast to their white surroundings.
▪ Kogan2011: cf. common modSAr *ḥwr ‘black’.
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hist

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▪ eC7 ḥūr ʕīn: For the Qur’anic ‘virgins of Paradise’ ), cf. entry ↗ḥūriyyaẗ.

cogn

▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 1 Hbr *ḥāwar ‘être blanc’, TargSyr ḥᵊwar ‘blanchir’, EmpAram ḥwry, Ar ʔaḥwarᵘ, ^†ḥawarwar ‘blanc’, ^†iḥwarra ‘être très blanc’, ^†ḥawira ‘être d’un noir et d’un blanc bien prononcés de manière à se faire ressortir réciproquement (se dit des couleurs de l’œil)’; ^†ḥuwwārà ‘farine très blance, pain très blanc’, Hbr ḥorī ‘pain’.
▪ As specialisations and/or metaphorical extensions from this value, also ↗ḥaw(a)r ‘(white) poplar’, ḥawar ^†‘third star (the one next the body) of the three in the tail of Ursa Major [i.e. Alioth?]’, ^†ḥuwwārà ‘fine flour’, perhaps also ^†ḥuwār ‘young camel when just born, or until weaned; i.e. from the time of its birth until big and weaned’, according to some even ḥawr ^†‘discerning power’ (distinguishing white from black) belong here. – For other etymologies of the ‘virgins of Paradise’, cf. entry ↗ḥūriyyaẗ. – Ǧabal thinks the value ‘white’ depends on ‘to (re)turn’; should there be some truth to this, one would have to look for cognates also in entry ↗ḥāra.
▪ Some ClassAr lexicographers regard also ḥawāriyy ‘apostle’ as belonging to ‘white’ (see DISC below), but this seems to be extremely unlikely. See also entry ↗ḥawāriyy.
▪ Other values that sometimes are derived from ‘white’ (but probably aren’t) are ‘cretaceous rock, chalk’ (↗ḥawwāraẗ, ḥuwwārà), ‘oysters’ (↗maḥār), and ‘bark-tanned kid, sheepskin, basil’ (↗ḥūr, var. ḥawar).

disc

▪ Huehnergard2011 reconstructs CentralSem *ḥwr ‘to be(come) white’. Kogan2008 thinks that Ar ʔaḥwariyy ‘white’, ḥawwara ‘to whiten’ are to be connected to ComAram *ḥwr ‘to be white’, unless they are Aramaisms. – Ǧabal2012, I: 404, thinks that the value ‘white’ is dependent on ‘to decrease’ [< ‘to turn (into s.th. worse)’], as whiteness is what appears on the uncovering of s.th. after it had disappeared from the surface (yataʔattà min al-inkišāf baʕd al-intiqāṣ min al-ẓāhir), an explanation that seems rather forced.
▪ After the original meaning ‘white’ had been taken in Ar by ʔabyaḍ (probably denom. from ↗bayḍ ‘egg’), ʔaḥwar became restricted in use to poetry where it came to signify the black pupils or the black of the eyes in contrast to their white surroundings, hence also the eyes of a gazelle or a girl with black eyes – DRS#ḤWR-1.
▪ Both ClassAr ḥawar ^†‘third star (the one next the body) of the three in the tail of Ursa Major [i.e. Alioth?]’ (Lane) and ^†al-ʔaḥwar ‘Jupiter’ probably got their names after their ‘whiteness’ or the sharp contrast between their whiteness and the surrounding black sky.
▪ For the value ‘virgins of Paradise’ cf. also ClassAr ^†ʔaḥwarī ‘white, fair’ (of the people of the towns or villages)’ and ^†ḥawāriyyaẗ (var. ḥawarwaraẗ, ḥawrāʔᵘ) ‘white, fair woman; pl. āt, women of the cities or towns’ (»so called by the Arabs of the desert because of their whiteness, or fairness, and cleanness«), or ‘women clear (white, fair) in complexion and skin’, or ‘women inhabitants of regions, districts, or tracts, of cities, towns, or villages, and of cultivated land’, or simply ‘women’ (»because of their whiteness, or fairness« – Lane). This interpretation would be an interesting overlapping of ‘(contrast between black and) white’ and the notion, expressed in ḤWR_4 (and in DRS seen together with ḤWR_3), of ‘settling down’, as appearing in SAr ḥwr ‘to settle (tr. and intr.) in (a town); resident, inhabitant (of a town)’ and Ar ↗ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane (of a town, village)’. – For other etymologies of the ‘virgins of Paradise’, cf. entry ↗ḥūriyyaẗ.
▪ Fraenkel1886: ClassAr lexicographers derive ^†ḥuwwāriyy ‘fine flour’ from many things, but it goes “of course” back to Syr ḥewārā, Jud ḤYWWR ‘white’. The author thinks that »in the meaning ‘to be white’, the root is probably genuinely Ar«; however, some items may not be derived directly from the Ar ‘white’ but from Sem cognates.
▪ If ↗maḥāraẗ ‘oysters’ is not (as DRS seems to assume by listing it as a separate item) independent from other values of ↗ḤWR, it may be either the *‘thing with the marked black-white contrast’ or the *‘thing that looks like a spiral’ (↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’).
▪ According to some ClassAr lexicographers, also ḥawāriyy ‘apostle’ is derived from ‘white’, the apostles either being ‘(white)washers’ by profession or having a ‘white’ character, i.e., a pure, innocent soul, free from evil. But this seems to be a pious popular interpretation, see entry ↗ḥawāriyy.
▪ DRS is convinced that the value ‘white’ cannot be related to that of ‘black’ as appearing in modSAr (cf. DRS#ḤWR-2) and perhaps Ar ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’. See ↗ḤWR.
▪ ClassAr dictionaries are undecided over the question whether the expression ^†baʕīd al‑ḥawr ‘intelligent; deep in penetration’ should be derived from ‘contrast between white and black’ (cf. also ʔaḥwar ^†‘(pure, clear) intellect’ »like an eye so termed, of pure white and black« – Lane) or from ḥawr ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’, »hence« ‘deep in penetration’. – We are perhaps dealing with an overlapping here: while ʔaḥwar, etymologically, belongs to ‘white’, ḥawr may be of different origin.
▪ Whether ḥūr, var. ḥawar ‘bark-tanned kid, sheepskin, basil’ and ^†ḥuwār ‘young camel when just born, or until weaned; i.e. from the time of its birth until big and weaned’ (Lane), are or are not related to ‘white’, will remain obscure until further evidence can be provided.

west

▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl houri, from Ar ḥūriyyaẗ ‘nymph, houri’, from ḥūr, pl. (also used as sg.) of ʔaḥwarᵘ, f. ḥawrāʔᵘ ‘characterized by the quality ḥawar, i.e., intense whiteness of the sclera of the eye in contrast to deep blackness of the iris’ (cf. ḥawira, vb. I, ‘to have this quality’). – (EtymOnline:) houri ‘nymph of Muslim paradise’, 1737, from Fr houri (1650s), from Pers ḥūrī ‘nymph in Paradise’, from Ar ḥawra [sic!] ‘to be beautifully dark-eyed’, like a gazelle + ‑i, Pers formative element denoting the sg. – EtymOnline.

deriv

► ^†ḥawira a (ḥawar), vb. I, to be shining white, be of intense white and black (eye), have such eyes, have delicate brows, together with a white complexion – Steingass1884: denom. (?).
► ḥawwara, vb. II, to make white, whiten; to bleach (a fabric): denom., caus.; for other values cf. ↗ḥawwara (‘to change, modify; to roll out dough’): caus., denom.
► ʔaḥwarᵘ, f. ḥawrāʔᵘ, pl. ḥūr, adj., having eyes with a marked contrast of white and black, (also, said of the eye:) intensely white and deep-black: elative formation.
► ḥūriyyaẗ, pl. ‑āt, ḥūr, n., houri, virgin of paradise: probably a nominalized (secondary, popular?) nsb-adj from ḥūr as the assumed pl.f. of ʔaḥwar, but cf. also ↗ḥūriyyaẗ; nymph: meaning extended on an idea from foreign mythology (?); (pl. ‑āt,) young locust:… | ḥūriyyaẗ al-māʔ, n., water nymph, nixie.

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