Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Ar lexicographers (as referred to by Lane) think the word is originally a vn., i.e., [v2] is the more original value, and [v1] is secondary. But this is not necessarily true.
▪ DRS groups the word together with the obsol. ^†ṭarafa ‘battre des paupières; regarder’ and ^†ṭurifa ‘être atteint, blessé à l’œil’ (DRS #ṬRP-5), but not with Hbr ṭārap̄ ‘to cast, knock’ or Aram Syr ṭᵊrap̄ ‘to shake, clap, smite’ (DRS #ṬRP-1), in spite of the notion of ‘casting/striking’ shared by all. Should there be a relation nevertheless, then the ‘eye’ would have developed from ‘to strike/hit/hurt the eye’, from ‘to strike/hit’, from ‘to cast, smite, knock, clap’, which perh. is a secondary value, evolved from a CSem *ṬRP ‘to tear, pluck, seize’, cf. Ar ṬRF_12 in root entry ↗ṬRF (≙ DRS #ṬRP-1). In contrast, Kogan2015 thinks that ^†ṭarafa ‘to strike one’s eye’ is almost certainly denominative from ṭarf ‘eye’, not the other way round; but he remains silent about the origin of ṭarf itself.
▪ Nişanyan23Oct2014 (s.v. Tu taraf) derives also Ar ↗ṭaraf ‘direction, side’ from Ar ^†ṭarafa ‘to look, cast an eye on’, from Ar ṭarf ‘eye’.

hist

▪ eC7 (eyesight, sight, glance) Q 38:52 qāṣirātu ’l-ṭarfi ‘not given to staring, modest, restraining their glances, of modest gaze [lit., women who cast down their gaze/eyes]’, 42:45 yanẓurūna min ṭarfin ḫafiyyin ‘they look furtively [lit., they look with a hidden glance], 14:43 lā yartaddu ʔilay-him ṭarfu-hum ‘not blinking, utterly stupefied, they cannot take in what they see [lit., their glance does not return to them]’, 27:40 qabla ʔan yartadda ʔilay-ka ṭarfu-ka ‘before you bat an eye [lit., before your glance returns to you]’
▪ ClassAr ṭarafa (i, ṭarf) (ʕayna-hū) ‘to hit, strike, smit, hurt s.o.’s eye (with a garment, etc.) so that it sheds tears’, ^†ṭarf ‘slapping with the hand upon the extremity of the eye’, hence also ‘striking upon the head’, ^†ṭārifaẗ , pl. ṭawārifᵘ, ‘s.th. that causes a twinkling or winking of the eye’, ^†ṭarfaẗ ‘red spot of blood, in the eye, occasioned by a blow or some other cause’, ṭurfaẗ ‘hurt of the eye, occasioning its shedding tears’ (Lane).

cogn

▪ DRS 10 (2012)#ṬRP-5 Ar ṭarafa ‘battre des paupières; regarder’, ṭarf ‘(coup d’) œil’, ṭurifa ‘être atteint, blessé à l’œil’.
▪ Zammit2002: Aram ṭrp ‘wink of an eye’?, Ar ṭarf ‘eye, glance, sight of the eyes’.

disc

▪ For the main picture, cf. above, section CONC.
▪ Any relation to ↗ṭaraf ‘end, extremity’ (the eye as an “extremity” of the head, or a twinkling interpreted as a look “from a side”)?
▪ Whatever the origin of ṭarf itself, some believe that ↗ṭurfaẗ ‘novelty’ essentially is *‘what strikes the eye (because it is new)’. (Others, however, would rather derive ‘novelty’ from CSem *ṬRP ‘to pluck’, regarding it as a generalization of ‘freshly plucked’, cf. ṬRF_3 in root entry ↗ṬRF.)
▪ In a similar vein, some Ar lexicographers explain Ar ^†ṭirf ‘noble, of high breed; generous’ as stemming from the more specific sense of ‘generous horse, one that is looked at (yuṭrafu) because of its beauty’, in this way connecting ‘nobility, generosity’ with ‘eye’ and ‘looking’. (Others, however, explain ‘nobility, generosity’ as having emerged from the idea of looking back to a long line of noble ancestors, i.e., “extremities”, in this way connecting it to ↗ṭaraf ‘end, extremity’.)

west

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deriv

► mā ʔašāra bi-ṭarf, expr., he didn’t bat an eye
► min ṭarf ḫafiyy, adv., secretly, furtively, discreetly
► ka-’rtidād al-ṭarf, adv., in the twinkling of an eye, instantly

► ṭarafa, i (ṭarf), vb. I, to blink, twinkle, wink, squint (also bi-ʕaynay-hi): prob. denom.
► ṭarfaẗ, n.f.: quasi-n.vic. of ṭarafa | bi-/fī ~ ʕayn, adv., in the twinkling of an eye, instantly; mā… ~a ʕayn, adv., not one moment

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