Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Prob. from *‘soil, mud, dust’ (not attested as such in Sem, but cf. Syr ṭᵉfal ‘to soil’, Ar ^†ṭafila ‘to be covered with/soiled by dust’; a reflex—fig. use—may also be Akk ṭapālu ‘to scorn, treat scornfully, with disrespect’, i.e., *like dirt).

hist

▪ Lane, Hava1899: ^†ṭafāl ~ ṭufāl ‘dry mud’, ^†ṭafīl ‘turbid water remaining in a watering-trough, in the bottom of a tank’, ^†ṭafila a (ṭafal) ‘to be covered with/soiled by dust (plant)’.

cogn

▪ DRS 10 (2012)#ṬPL-2 Hbr ṭāpal ‘enduire de’, JP ṭᵉpal ‘frotter de’, Syr ṭᵉfal ‘salir’, Ar ṭafila ‘être endommagé par la poussière (plante)’, ṭufāl ‘argile, boue’, Soq meṭfel ‘cavité’.

disc

▪ ‘Clay, argil, loam’ may be one of the oldest values of the root ↗ṬFL (Sem *ṬPL), secondary only to *‘soil, mud, dust’. From here, the meaning of of ‘softness, tenderness, smoothness’ (↗ṭafl) may have developed, and from the latter the word for ‘infant, baby, child’ (↗ṭifl, lit. *‘of tender age’).
▪ There may be some overlapping with ↗TFL and/or ↗ṮFL (MSA tufl, tufāl ‘spit, spittle, saliva’, tafil ‘ill-smelling, malodorous’, EgAr tifl ‘fibrous vegetable sediment, dregs’ ≙ MSA ṯufl ‘dregs, lees, sediment’).
▪ Neither ↗ṭufaylī ‘uninvited guest, parasite’ nor ^†ṭafal ‘time before sunset or sunrise’ seem to be related in any way.

west

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deriv

For other items of the root, cf. ↗ṭafl, ↗ṭifl, ↗ṭufaylī, and, for the general picture, ↗ṬFL.

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