Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Formed after the mifʕal pattern, miḥwar is originally a n.instr., designating a certain tool that turns or is turned round. [v2] ‘rolling pin’ seems thus to be closer to the original meaning than [v1] that means a point rather than a tool. The item is made dependent on ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’ by most ClassAr lexicographers, but seen as distinct from the latter in DRS.

hist

▪ …

cogn

▪ ClassAr dictionaries would search for cognates akin either to ‘to (re)turn’ (↗ḥāra) or to ‘(contrast between surrounding black and) white’ (↗ḥawar).
▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 8: Ar ḥawwara ‘étendre la pâte avec le miḥwar (rouleau)’, EgAr ḥawwar ‘modifier’, miḥwar ‘axe’.

disc

▪ As one would expect from its form, which follows one of the common n.instr. patterns, mifʕal, miḥwar in ClassAr means a tool, namely 1. a ‘pin of wood (or iron) on which the sheave of a pulley turns, iron [pin] that unites the bent piece of iron which is on each side of the sheave of a pulley, and in which it [the miḥwar ] is inserted, and the sheave itself’; as such, lexicographers derive it either from ↗ḥāra ‘to turn’ or think that »it is so called because, by its revolving, it is polished so that it becomes white« (Lane), in this way relating it to ‘(marked contrast between black and surrounding) white’ (↗ḥawar); 2. ‘wooden implement of the baker or maker of bread with which he expands the dough […] and makes it round, to put it into the hot ashes in which it is baked’; ClassAr lexicographers again argue that this tool is »so called because of its turning round upon the dough, as being likened to the miḥwar of the sheave of a pulley, and because of its roundness«, seeing it as an extended use of ‘axis’. – In contrast, DRS (s.v. #ḤWR-8) puts miḥwar ‘axis’ together with vb. II ↗ḥawwara ‘to change, modify;¹ to roll out (dough)’ and treats this group of items as a value distinct from ‘to (re)turn’ (ḥāra) as well as from ‘(contrast black/) white’ (ḥawar). – Semantic relations are not really clear, but for the writer of the present entry it seems rather unlikely a) that ‘axis’ and ‘baker’s instrument for rolling out the dough’ should have different origins, and b) that miḥwar should not be connected to ‘to (re)turn’.

1. According to DRS, this is EgAr only. But Wehr1979 lists it as a regular MSA item.

west

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deriv

duwal al-miḥwar, n.pl., (formerly) the Axis Powers (pol.)

► miḥwarī, adj., axial (math., techn.): nsb-adj.

Cf. also:
► ḥawwara, vb. II, 1 to change, alter, amend, transform, reorganise, remodel, modify (DO or min s.th.). 2 to roll out (dough). – For other meanings cf. ↗ḥawar.
► taḥawwara, vb. V, to be altered, changed, amended, transformed, reorganized, remodeled, modified: t-stem of ḥawwara, intr./quasi-pass.
► taḥwīr, n., alteration, change, transformation, reorganization, reshuffle, remodeling, modification: vn. II.

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