Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ DRS 9 (2010)#ḤWR 12: Ar maḥāraẗ ‘coquillage’ is listed as distinct item, without any direct cognates in Sem or outside.
▪ But if it should nevertheless be akin to some other item(s) of ḤWR, the cognates will probably be found in the entries on ↗ḥawar ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’, ↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’, and ↗Ḥawrān. For the whole picture, cf. ↗ḤWR.

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▪ The word maḥāraẗ does not only mean ‘oyster’ (originally probably ‘mother-of-pearl shell; oyster-shell ’) but until today is also a vn. of ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’. In ClassAr it is also a n.loc. and as such means ‘place that returns [like a circle], in which a return is made [to the point of commencement]’ (Lane), and is therefore also used to signify the ‘concha of the ear’. While these values thus seem to be akin to ↗ḥāra ‘to (re)turn’ (as also many others, cf. ↗ḤWR), the explanation, given by other lexicographers, of maḥāraẗ as ‘the external, deep, and wide, cavity, around the ear-hole’ lets also think of a possible relation to ḥawr in the sense, now obsolete, of ^†‘bottom (of a well etc.)’ (which in turn has perhaps to be seen together with the value ‘black’ as appearing in modSAr, cf. DRS#ḤWR-2, see entry ↗Ḥawrān), or with the ‘(marked contrast between black and) white’ as expressed in ↗ḥawar and derivatives. So, if maḥār in the meaning ‘oysters’ is not (as DRS seems to assume by listing it as a separate item) independent of other values of ḤWR, it may be either the *‘thing with the marked black-white contrast’ or the *‘thing that looks like a spiral’.
▪ The value, now obsolete, that maḥār (aẗ) could take in ClassAr in addition to that of ‘oysters’ and ‘place in which a return is made (to the point of commencement)’, namely ^†‘side, region, quarter, tract, etc.’ has probably to be seen together with ↗ḥāraẗ ‘quarter, lane’, see s.v.
▪ Lane mentions also the meaning »‘thing resembling [the kind of vehicle called] hawdaǧ ’ (pronounced vulgarly maḥārraẗ), pl. āt, maḥāʔirᵘ, often applied in the present day to the ‘dorsers, panniers, oblong chests which are borne, one on either side, by a camel, and, with a small tent over them, compose a hawdaǧ ’, ‘[ornamented hawdaǧ called the] maḥmil [vulgarly pronounced maḥmal ] of the pilgrims [which is borne by a camel, but without a rider, and is regarded as the royal banner of the caravan; such as is described and figured in Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians ]’«. This value is difficult to relate to any of the other ḤWR values and remains obscure.

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► maḥāraẗ, n.un., oyster; oyster shell, mussel; trowel

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