Bibliotheca Polyglotta

1 moucharaby, projecting oriel window with a wooden latticework enclosure; wooden oriel; attic room. – 2 a kind of drinking vessel; vase, pot for flowers – WehrCowan1979.

conc

▪ Morphologically, mašrabiyyaẗ is a nominalized nsb-adj., formed from mašrab(aẗ), which in MSA is either a ‘drink, s.th. to drink’ or a ‘drinking place’ (n.loc.).
▪ [v2] is derived from mašrab in the sense of ‘drink’ and thus literally means *‘belonging to drinking’, hence ‘drinking vessel’, whence also generalised to mean *‘vessel, vase (in the form of a drinking jar)’.
▪ The case of [v1] is a bit more complicated, see section DISC below.

hist

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cogn

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disc

▪ [v1]: While in WehrCowan the meaning of mašrabiyyaẗ is only that of a place (window, oriel, attic), other sources identify the word with a certain technique of turning wood and a characteristic feature of Middle Eastern, esp. Cairo, architecture. In EI², e.g., we find the following description (and etymology): mašrabiyyaẗ »designates a technique of turned wood used to produce lattice-like panels, like those which were used in the past to adorn the windows in traditional domestic architecture. […] The term derives from Ar šariba ‘to drink’. The connection between the turned wood technique and drinking was established last century by E. W. Lane, who describes the mašrabaẗ as a niche attached to such lattice wooden windows and used to keep the water jars cool and fresh for drinking. This interpretation is confirmed by waqf documents, which since the 10th/16th century refer to such niches as mašrabaẗ and also to the turned wood technique as mašrabiyyaẗ. Muḥammad ʕAlī is said to have prohibited the use of mašrabiyyaẗ windows, in order to replace traditional by European architecture. The mašrabiyyaẗ technique is a speciality of Cairo, where it was used with a multitude of patterns and combinations […]« – D. Behrens-Abouseif, art. “Mashrabiyya”, in EI².
▪ Thus, according to the EI² entry, the famous ‘Islamic’ technique of turned wood is called mašrabiyyaẗ after the niches in the windows called mašrabaẗ, these having their name from the drinking jars (= [v2]) that were put into the niches to cool their contents.
▪ Other possible etymologies:

from mašrab(aẗ), but not in the sense of ‘drinking vessel’ (= [v2]) but in that of ‘drinking place’ (= [v1]), more specifically, ‘room on an upper floor where drinks are served’. The nisba formed from mašrab(aẗ) would then refer to s.th. ‘pertaining to the drinking room, mašrab(aẗ) ’, particularly the oriel projecting from this room to the garden or street. Signifying ‘oriel’, mašrabiyyaẗ overlaps, and may have been influenced by, mašrafiyyaẗ, the proper term for ‘projecting balcony enclosed by lattice-like wooden screens’ (BadawiHinds1986), from mašraf ‘elevated site’, cf. ↗ŠRF, ↗šurfaẗ ‘balcony’;
the fact that an oriel is ‘stretching out, projecting, overhanging’ from a fassade relates it semantically to other items of ŠRB such as ↗šārib ‘moustache’ (properly only ‘what overhangs from a moustache into the mouth’), ↗šarrābaẗ ‘tassel’ (hanging down from the roof etc.), and ↗ĭšraʔabba ~ ĭšrābba ‘to stretch/crane one’s neck’. Traditionally, these items too are believed to derive from to ↗šariba ‘to drink’, but it is perhaps more appropriate to link them, and also mašrabiyyaẗ as *‘(niche in) the overhanging one’ to lHbr širbēḇ ‘1 to stretch out, prolong, enlarge; 2 to draw down, let down’ and Aram šarbēḇ ‘to prolong, let hang down, let down’, archaic Š-stems (šap̄ʕel forms) belonging to the complex of Sem *rabb‑ ‘big’ (cf. Ar ↗rabb ‘lord, master’). The unusual phonology—the regular correspondence would be (Sem *š >) Hbr š, Aram š ~ Ar s, and (Sem *ś >) Hbr ś, Aram s, Ar š —could be explained as the result of a late development;
the EgAr vb. II, šarrab ‘to plane (wood)’ (BadawiHinds1986) can also suggest that mašrabiyyaẗ is derived from a tech. term in carpentry for turning wood in a specific way. In this case, the meaning ‘(niche in an) oriel’ would be secondary, taken from the wooden latticework with which the oriels often were ornated. EgAr šarrab may however be denom. itself, from the latticework used. The modern use as documented in WehrCowan does not give any hint here: even in its most specific technical meaning, as ‘to impregnate’, vb. II šarraba is clearly a causative (*‘to make drink, absorb’), from vb. I, šariba ‘to drink’. Hava1899 gives, in addition to ‘to impregnate, saturate’, also ‘to purify (a new skin)’, a meaning however that seems to belong to tanning rather than carpentry;
EgAr širbaẗ ‘breeze, fresh air’ (BadawiHinds1986) is probably not an original value attached to ŠRB either.

west

▪ Engl mashrabiya, arch. moucharaby, from Ar mašrabiyyaẗ.

deriv

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