Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Perh. akin to ↗ʕabara ‘to cross’, from Sem *ʕ˅b˅r- ‘id.’ (denom. of *ʕib(˅)r- ‘opposite side, region beyond’), interpreted as *‘to cross a border, reach a limit, a brim, overflow’ (esp. feelings, emotion), hence ‘tear, to shed tears’, or, in a narrower sense, to WSem *ʕBR ‘to overflow’.

hist

▪ Cf. also ClassAr (G-stem) ^†ʕabara (ʕabr) and ^†ʕabira a (ʕabar) ‘to shed tears; to grieve, mourn, be sorrowful, sad, unhappy’, ^†ʕabrà (pl. ʕubr) ‘weeping (eye), hence: grieving (woman), bereft of her child’ – Lane/Hava1899.

cogn

▪ Probably related to Hbr ʕäḇrāʰ ‘overflow, excess, outburst; arrogance; overflowing rage, fury’, (Št-stem, denom.) hiṯʕabbar ‘to be arrogant, infuriate o.s.’ (BDB1906), and Syr ʕbar ‘…; to surpass, exceed, be beyond, overcome’ (e.g., bᵊ-šūp̱rāh lᵊ-šemšā ʕābrā hᵊwāt ‘she surpassed the sun in fairness’), (eṯp) ‘…; to neglect, fail (of accomplishment), to transgress, sin’, (aph) ‘…; to go beyond, exceed’ (PayneSmith1903). – ? Cf. also Akk ebirtu (var. abirtu, ḫibirtu), name of a month? According to CAD, this word is »possibly to be connected with [Akk] ebēru, in the meaning ‘to overflow’, attested in WSem (Hbr, Aram), hence ‘the month of overflowing of the rivers’«. – However, it is still not clear whether WSem ʕBR ‘to overflow’ really is related to Sem ʕBR ‘to cross’ or whether we are dealing with a homonymous root.

disc

▪ If ʕabraẗ ‘tear’ is related to WSem *ʕBR ‘to overflow’, its original meaning would be *‘what overflows’ or *‘result of an overflow (of emotion, rage, fury, etc.)’. Gesenius1915, it is right, thinks that WSem *ʕBR ‘to overflow’ has to be treated as a root in its own right, different from Sem *ʕBR ‘to cross’; but why should ‘to overflow’ not go back to an earlier ‘reaching/crossing a border, go beyond, pass over’ and thus probably have developed from *‘to cross’?

west

–

deriv

► ʕabira, a (ʕabar) to shed tears
► ĭstaʕbara, vb. X, to shed tears, weep

For other values attached to the same root, cf. ↗ʕabara, ↗ʕabbara, ↗ʕabīr, ↗ʕibrī, ↗ʕibraẗ, ↗ʕibāraẗ, and, for the whole picture, ↗ʕBR.

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