Bibliotheca Polyglotta

Etymological Dictionary of Arabic

EtymArab

ṭifl, pl. ʔaṭfāl

meta
ID 540 • Sw –/20 • BP 174 • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√ṬFL

gram
n.

engl
infant, baby, child – WehrCowan 1979.

conc
▪ Literally prob. *‘the tiny, soft, tender one’, cf. ↗ṭafl ‘tender, soft’.

hist
▪ eC7 1 (used as a n. of the species: the child population, children, infants) Q 40:67 huwa ’llaḏī ḫalaqa-kum min turābin ṯumma min nuṭfatin ṯumma min ʕalaqatin ṯumma yuḫriǧu-kum ṭiflan ‘He it is who created you from dust, then from a drop of seed, then from a clinging mass, then He brought you forth as infants’. – 2 (child, infant, baby) Q 24:59 wa-ʔiḏā balaġa ’l-ʔaṭfālu min-kum-u ’l-ḥuluma fa-l-yastaʔḏinū ‘and when your children reach puberty, they should ask leave (to enter)’
▪ Hava1899: ṭafula, u (ṭufūlaẗ, ṭafālaẗ), vb. I, ‘to be in infancy, delicate’

cogn
▪ DRS 10 (2012)#ṬPL-3 Syr ṭeflā ‘enfants’, Ar ṭifl, Mhr Ḥrs ṭāfəl, Jib ṭäfəl, Soq ṭafel ‘enfants en bas âge’, Te ʔaṭfal (pl.) ‘enfants’.
▪ Zammit2002: Akk ṭāpalā(tu) ‘Erbin’,¹ Hbr ṭap ‘children’, Aram ṭaplā ‘children, family, household’, Syr ṭapālā ‘infant’, Ar ṭifl ‘very young child, infant’, Gz ṭāf ‘infans, parvulus’ (? < Hbr)

1. This item is unlikely to be related -- SG.

disc
▪ See above, section CONC.

west
–

deriv
► ṭiflaẗ, n.f., little girl: f. formation.
► ṭiflī, adj., 1 child (adj.), baby (adj.), children’s, of or pertaining to childhood or infancy; 2 infantile, childlike, childish: nsb-adj. | al-ṭibb al-~, n., pediatrics.
► ṭafal, n., 1 infancy, babyhood, early childhood; 2 childhood, childhood stage: quasi-vn. I.
► ṭafālaẗ, n.f., 1 infancy, babyhood, early childhood; 2 childhood, childhood stage; 3 initial stage, beginnings, dawn, early period: vn. I (of obsol. vb. I, ^†ṭafula ‘to be in infancy’).
► ṭufūlaẗ, n.f., 1 infancy, babyhood, early childhood; 2 childhood, childhood stage: vn. I (of obsol. vb. I, ^†ṭafula ‘to be in infancy’); 3 children: fig. use of [v1-2].
► ṭufūlī, adj., 1 child (adj.), baby (adj.), children’s, of or pertaining to childhood or infancy; 2 infantile, childlike, childish: nsb-adj., from ṭufūlaẗ.
► ṭufūliyyaẗ, n.f., 1 infancy, babyhood, early childhood; 2 childhood, childhood stage: abstr. formation in -iyyaẗ, from ṭufūlaẗ.
For other items of the root, cf. ↗ṭafl, ↗ṭufāl, ↗ṭufaylī, and, for the general picture, ↗ṬFL.

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