Bibliotheca Polyglotta

1a to wind, fold, tie, bind, wrap (s.th. ʕalà around or about s.th.); b to bind up, bandage (s.th.); c to fold (s.th.); d to wrap (the head) with a brow band, sash, or turban – WehrCowan1976.

conc

▪ For ClassAr, BK1860 gives the primary value of ʕaṣaba as ʻceindre tout autour, entourer un lieu (se dit, p.ex., des bestiaux qui entourent une pièce d’eau pour y boire); empoigner, prendre avec la main (de manière que la chose entre toute entière dans la main); saisir, p.ex., plusieurs rameaux ou herbes à la fois, pour les arracher’ (to gather round s.th.; to clasp, grasp, hold tight).
▪ It seems possible that the semantic complex based on ʻto bind, tie, wrap’ and, as its derivative (?), perh. also ʻharshness, hardship, difficulty, pain, grieve’ (↗ʕaṣīb), ultimately depends on ↗ʕaṣab ʻnerves, sinew, tendons’ (as the material with which s.th. is tied together, and/or which is associated with the idea of *contraction, tightening, becoming tense\dense’).
▪ Inside Sem, Ar is the only language that has developed the value ‘to bind, tie, tighten’ as a meaning of √ʕṢB. With this sense, Ar ʕaṣaba has no direct cognates. However, the fact that ‘to bind, tie, tighten’ evidently has produced a larger complex of derived meanings can serve as an indication of the old age of this value, prob. older than the theme of ʻharshness, hardship, difficulty, pain, grieve’ which is the main value of √ʕṢB in Hbr, Aram, and EthSem (represented also in Ar ↗ʕaṣīb). In fact, it seems not unlikely that this latter complex is derived from ʻto bind, tie, tighten’. Accordingly, Leslau2006 lists it, without further comment, as cognate to Ar ʕaṣaba ‘to bind, tie, tighten’ (giving also vb. VII, ĭnʕaṣaba, where the passive-refl. of the N-stem, lit. *ʻto be tied up, be tightened’, has assumed the fig. meaning ‘to be\become difficult’).
▪ Leslau2006 (CDG) reports that Buhl and Baumgartner¹ also compared Ar ↗ġaḍiba ‘to be angry’, an idea that Leslau himself does not find convincing.² To Leslau, a comparison with Ar ↗ṣaʕuba (with metathesis) ‘to be hard, be difficult’ would seem more likely.
▪ The semantic field that has grown out of the basic ‘binding, wrapping’ (or ʻgathering around, clasping, grasping’, as BK1860 sees it) is wide. Meanings seem to have developed mainly into two directions: 1 ‘binding, wrapping’ > ‘headcloth, turban’; 2 ‘binding, wrapping’ > a ‘to stick to, gather around (*tie o.s. to) s.th./s.o.’ > ‘union, group, gang; clan solidarity’, etc.; b ‘to cling obdurately to s.th./s.o.; fanaticism, ardent zeal, bigotry’; ĭʕtiṣāb that was used for a long time to render the Engl ‘strike’ before it became replaced by ↗ʔiḍrāb, is prob. a variant of ‘to form a group of fanatic followers’.– If ʻbinding, wrapping’ also belongs together with the complex of ʻto hurt, pain, grieve; harshness, trouble, distress, hunger, misery’ as found in Hbr, Aram, and EthSem, perh. via *ʻto tighten, get denser, contract’, then the values treated sub ʕṢB_3-6 in root entry ↗√ʕṢB will have to be counted as a third string of derivations: *3 ‘binding, wrapping’ > ʻto tighten, contract’ > *a ʻto become critical, crucial (< *suffocating)’ (↗ʕaṣīb); b ‘to take by force (< *to tighten a siege, intensify one’s attack)’ (^†ʕaṣaba); c ʻto dry in the mouth (saliva), become unclean (teeth) (*< contraction in the mouth)’ (^†ʕaṣaba, ^†ʕaṣiba); d ʻ(*to make s.o. tighten his/her belt >) ʻto reduce to straitness, (*to let the saliva dry out in s.o.’s mouth or on his\her lips >) to make people starve or die of thirst’ (^†ʕaṣṣaba), (*to tighten one’s own belt >) to be satisfied, content o.s. (^†taʕaṣṣaba)’. – Leslau also mentions that earlier research (Buhl, Baumgartner) had proposed a relation between these items and Ar ↗ġaḍiba ʻto be angry, vexed, irritated’, a suggestion Leslau himself is not comfortable with (without giving further reasons). Indeed, the regular correspondence of Ar √ĠḌB in Gz should be √ʕṢ́B, not √ʕṢB. To Leslau, a connection with Ar ↗ṣaʕb (metathesis) seems more likely.
▪ There is no clear evidence for such a dependence of 3 on 2 yet, so that one should not prematurely exclude the possibility of an independent complex *‘to be difficult, harsh, hard, (hence:) pain, suffering, etc.’ (which may be related to ↗√ṢʕB, as considered by Leslau). The degree of semantic overlapping between the Hbr Aram EthSem values and Ar ʕaṣīb ‘hot, crucial, critical (time, stage)’, ^†ĭnʕaṣaba ‘to be difficult’, ^†ĭʕṣawṣaba (vb. XII) ‘to make the highest efforts; to be hot, dangerous, grow worse’, as well as the ideas of ʻdearth’, ʻhunger’ and ʻstarvation’ associated with the root suggest a closeness of ʻbinding, wrapping’ and ʻdifficulty, pain’, linked by the notion of ʻto tighten, make dense, become tense, intensify, have to tighten one’s belt’.
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1. Frants Buhl, Wilhelm Gesenius’ Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, bearb. v. F.B., 17^th ed., Leipzig: F.C.W. Vogel, 1921: 609; Walter Baumgartner, Hebräisches und aramäisches Lexicon zum Alten Testament, von Ludwig Koehler und W.B., 3^rd ed., rev. by W.B., Leiden: Brill, 1967: 818. 2. The idea is mentioned also in BDB1906 s.v. ʕṢB ʻpain’, but qualified as a »dubious« by the authors, there too.

hist

…

cogn

▪ Leslau2006 (CDG): Hbr ʕāṣab ‘to hurt, pain, grieve’ (BDB1906), (Ni) ‘to be grieved’, (Hi) ‘to grieve’, Aram ʕᵃṣaḇ ‘to be grieved’; Ar ʕaṣaba ‘to bind, tighten’, ĭnʕaṣaba ‘to be difficult’; Gz ʕəṣab ‘harshness, rigor, severity, difficulty, trouble, [etc.]’, ʕəṣub, (Y) ʕəḍub ‘hard, harsh, difficult, severe, serious, rough, rugged, harassed, oppressed, troublesome, vehement, grievous, fierce, austere, onerous […]’, Te ʕaṣba ‘to be in distress, suffer from hunger’, Tña ʕaṣäbä ‘to be in misery, be in distress’, Amh aṭṭäbä ‘to be in distress, marvel’, aṣäba ‘poverty, distress’, əṣub ‘distressed, astounding, marvelous’.¹
▪ Cf. prob. also ↗ʕaṣab ʻnerves, sinews, tendons’.
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1. Passed into (Cu) Bil aṣab ‘laborious, troublesome’.

disc

▪ See above, section CONC.
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west

–

deriv

► ʕaṣaba ’l-rīqu famahū, expr., the saliva dried in his mouth, clogged his mouth: lit., *ʻmade it contract’.

► ʕaṣṣaba, vb. II, 1a to wind around, fold around, tie around, wrap around (s.th.); b to bind up, bandage (s.th.); c to wrap (the head) with a brow band, sash, or turban: D-stem, ints., and/or denom. from ʕṣabaẗ, ʕuṣbaẗ, ʕiṣāb(aẗ), or a similar n.
► taʕaṣṣaba, vb. V, 1a to wind the turban round one’s head, put on the turban; b to apply a bandage, bandage o.s.; 2a to take sides, to side (maʕa, li‑ with; ʕalà against); b to form a league, clique, group, team, gang, or coalition, gang up, team up; c to cling obdurately or fanatically (li‑ to); d to be fanatic, bigoted, be a fanatic, a zealot; e to plot, conspire, collude, connive (ʕalà against): Dt-stem, with [v1] as the primary value and [v2] extended use of [v1].
► ĭʕtaṣaba, vb. VIII, 1 to form a league, clique, group, team, gang, or coalition, gang up, team up; 2 to go on strike, to strike: Gt-stem, with [v1] as the primary value (from ʕaṣabaẗ, ʕuṣbaẗ, or ʕiṣābaẗ, see below), and [v2] extended use of [v1].

► ʕaṣab, pl. ʔaʕṣāb, n., 1 nerve; 2 sinew: related to ʕaṣaba ʻto wind, fold, tie’ or to be treated separately? – Cf. ↗s.v.
► ʕaṣabī, adj., 1 sinewy, nerved, nervy; 2 nervous, neural, nerve‑, neuro‑, neur‑ (in compounds); 3 nervous, high-strung: nisba formation of ʕaṣab (see preceding item and ↗s.v.) | ʕaṣabiyyu ’l-mazāǧ, adj., nervous, high-strung; al-ǧihāz al-ʕaṣabī, n., the nervous system; ḥālaẗ ʕaṣabiyyaẗ, n.f., nervousness, nervosity; al-ḍuʕf al-ʕaṣabī, n., neurasthenia.
► ʕaṣabiyyaẗ, n.f., 1 nervousness, nervosity: abstract formation in ‑iyyaẗ, from of ʕaṣab ʻnerve’ (see above and ↗s.v.); – 2a (pl. ‑āt) zealous partisanship, bigotry, fanaticism; b party spirit, team spirit, esprit de corps; c tribal solidarity, racialism, clannishness, tribalism, national consciousness, nationalism: abstract formation in ‑iyyaẗ, from of ʕaṣabaẗ ʻnerve’ (see below and ↗ʕaṣābaẗ).
► ʕaṣbaẗ, pl. ʕuṣab (EgAr), n.f., a black headcloth with red or yellow border: cf. also ^†ʕaṣabaẗ ʻblack head-kerchief worn by women’, marked as SyrAr in Hava1899.
► ʕaṣabaẗ, pl. ‑āt, and ʕuṣbaẗ, pl. ʕuṣab, n.f., 1a union, league, federation, association; b group, troop, band, gang, clique; 2 ʕaṣabaẗ, paternal relations, relationship, agnates | ʕuṣbaẗ al‑ʔumam, n.f., the League of Nations. – In Hava1899, ʕuṣbaẗ ʻfaction, gang’ is marked with the sign for SyrAr dialect.
► ʕaṣīb, adj., hot, crucial, critical (time, stage): related to ʕaṣaba ʻto wind, fold, tie’, or to ʕaṣab ʻnerves’, or to be treated separately? – Cf. ↗s.v.
► ʕiṣāb, n., band, ligature, dressing, bandage.
► ʕiṣābaẗ, pl. ʕaṣāʔibᵘ, n.f., 1a band, ligature, dressing, bandage; b headcloth, headband, fillet; c brow band, frontlet; – 2a (pl. ‑āt) union, league, federation, association; b group, troop, band, gang | ʕiṣābāt al-ḫaṭf, n.non-hum.pl., bands of robbers; ḥarb al‑ʕiṣābāt, n.f., guerrilla warfare.
► taʕaṣṣub, n., 1 fanaticism, ardent zeal, bigotry, fanatical enthusiasm; 2a party spirit, partisanship; b clannishness, racialism, race consciousness, tribalism: vn. V.
► ĭʕtiṣāb, pl. ‑āt, n., strike: vn. VIII.
► mutaʕaṣṣib, adj., 1 fanatically enthusiastic (li‑ for); 2 n., enthusiast, fanatic, bigot, zealot: PA V.

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