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Etymological Dictionary of Arabic
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marḥaban مرْحباً
meta
ID … • Sw – • BP 1072 • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√RḤB, MRḤB
gram
adv.
engl
welcome!
conc
The popular greeting is often claimed (by Christians or non-Arabs) to be of Aram/Syr or Pers origin. But there is no cogent reason why it should not be genuinly Arabic. The meaning ‘welcome!’ is in any case attested already in the Q.
hist
▪ eC7 Q 38:59-60 hāḏā fawǧun muqtaḥimun maʕa-kum, lā marḥaban bi-him [▪ …] qālū: bal ʔantum lā marḥaban bi-kum ‘Here is an army rushing blindly with you. (Those who are already in the Fire say): No word of welcome for them. [▪ …] They say: Nay, but you (misleaders), for you there is no word of welcome.’
cogn
▪ BDB1906: Hbr märḥāb ‘broad, roomy place’, which is also used figuratively »of freedom from distress and anxiety«.
▪ Cf. also ↗raḥ˅ba.
disc
Several etymologies have been suggested:

▪ Arab lexicographers derive it from ↗√RḤB ‘ample, wide’ as a vn. or n.loc. »You say marḥaban and marḥaban bi-ka meaning ‘Thou hast come to, or found, ampleness, spaciousness, or roominess’, or ‘alight you, or abide you in ampleness, etc.’, for such we have for thee, the word being put in the acc. because of a verb understood; or ‘thou hast alighted in an ample […] space’, ‘welcome to ampleness [etc.]’« (Lane iii 1867). – Cf. Hbr märḥāb ‘broad, roomy place’, which is also used figuratively »of freedom from distress and anxiety« (BDB1906).
▪ Another theory traces it back to Syr mār ḥūbā ‘The Lord is (full of) love’, allegedly a greating among Aramaic-speaking Christians.
▪ A third explanation sees it as an Arabized form of Pers mehr-bān, an adj. signifying (accord. to Steingass) ‘benevolent, benficient, kind, affectionate, friendly, compassionate, favouring, loving; […] a friend’.

west
–
deriv
► BP#2022raḥḥaba, vb. II, to welcome (bi‑ s.o., s.th.), bid welcome (bi‑ to s.o.); to receive graciously, make welcome (bi‑ s.o.): caus. of vb. I ↗raḥVba ‘to be wide, spacious’ (then ‘to welcome’ is, literally, ‘to make the space wide (for a guest, etc.)’), or denom. from ↗marḥaban ?
► taraḥḥaba, vb. V, to welcome (bi‑ s.o.), bid welcome (bi‑ to): refl. of II ?

► tarḥāb, n., welcome, greeting:. | qābalahū bi-t., vb. III, to receive s.o. with open arms.
► BP#2889tarḥīb, n., welcoming, welcome, greeting: vn. II.
► tarḥībī, adj.: nsb-adj from tarḥīb | kalimaẗ tarḥībiyyaẗ, n., welcoming speech, word of welcome.

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