Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ DUDEN1963, Kluge2002, Huehnergard2011, DeCaprona2013, EtymOnline: The same Akk qanû to which Ar qanāẗ is akin, was taken into Grk as kánna ‘pipe, reed’. The latter produced also the derivative Grk kánistron (also kánystron, kánastron) ‘basket made from reed’, which we find again in Lat canistrum ‘wicker basket (for bread, fruit, flowers, etc.)’ (> Engl canister ‘lC15 basket; 1711 metal receptacle’; Ital canestro ‘basket’ > Ge Kanister ‘C18 basket, C19 canister’;¹ Ge Knaster, a word that seems to have taken the modern meaning of ‘low-quality tobacco’ in C18 student circles, was originally, when it entered Ge in c1700, probably a word for ‘fine tobacco’ shipped in a small reed basket, probably came in via Span canastro, from Grk kánastron ‘basket made of reed’ – Kluge2002). — Either directly from the Sem source or a modification of the same Grk kánna ‘pipe, reed’ is also Grk kanṓn ‘any straight rod; (later:) measure, rule; (finally, in the papyri of C4 and C5) assessment for taxation; imperial taxes; tariff’, cf. Ar ↗qānūn. — Grk kánna ‘reed; pipe’ was taken into Lat as canna, which became the main basis for further development and borrowing. One of the earliest such occasions may be the shift of meaning in lLat from canna ‘reed; pipe’ to ‘container, vessel’, inspired perhaps by a type, in Roman pottery, of cans that had a pipe (cf. also Ar ↗qannīnaẗ). lLat canna ‘container, vessel’ may then have passed into Germ-speaking regions, for which some etymologists reconstruct a protoGerm *kanna as the source of what now is Engl can (oEngl canne ‘a cup, container’), Ge Kanne (C11 oHGe channa, mHGe kanne), etc. (cf. oSax oNo Swed kanna, mDutch kanne, Dutch kan).² — In its original form and meaning, Lat canna ‘reed, cane’ also passed into Span as cano ‘tube’, which produced the augmentative (Span) cañon ‘pipe, tube; deep hollow, gorge’ that in MexSpan was extended in meaning to encompass also a ‘narrow valley between cliffs’.¹ ³ The dimin. formation Fr cannelle ‘little pipe’ from Fr canne is the origin of the modNo kanel ‘cinnamon’ (so called after the cinnamon sticks).⁴ — The dimin. formation Lat cannula ‘small reed or pipe’, from Lat canna ‘reed, pipe’, lives on in Fr canule, which gave (C19) Ge Kanüle ‘cannula’ – Kluge2002. Engl cannula, canula, is attested already in the 1680 s in the modern surgical sense – EtymOnline. — Lat canna also lived on in Ital canna ‘reed; pipe, tube’ where an augmentative formation gave Ital cannone ‘large tube, barrel’. This cannone was taken, in C16 (Kluge2002), into Ge as Kanone, but already two centuries earlier (C14) into oFr as canon, hence Anglo-Fr canon and, finally (c1400), Engl cannon ‘tube for projectiles’. The meaning ‘large ordnance piece’, the main modern sense, is from 1520 s – EtymOnline. — Not an augmentative but a diminutive of Ital canna is Ital cannello ‘small thin tube, pipe’. Adding again the augmentative suffix ‑one to the diminutive in ‑ello, we get Ital cannellone ‘big thick tube, pipe’, the pl. of which, cannelloni, is used to designate a form of stuffed pasta. — Another group of European words can be traced back to the adj. formation, from Lat canna, of Lat canālis ‘formed like a pipe’ which, when used as noun, meant ‘water pipe, groove, channel’. In the latter meaning, the word was taken into Ital as canale, which in turn was loaned (in C15) into Ge as Kanal ‘canal, channel’ – DUDEN1963, Kluge2002. Engl canal came in (eC15) via Fr canal, chanel ‘water channel, tube, pipe, gutter’ (C12). Originally in Engl ‘a pipe for liquid’, its sense was transferred by the 1670 s to ‘artificial waterway’ – EtymOnline. Also from Fr chanel ‘bed of a waterway; tube, pipe, gutter’ is Engl channel (eC14) ‘bed of running water’, from oFr, from Lat canalis ‘groove, channel, waterpipe’. channel was given a broader, figurative sense (of ‘information, commerce, etc.’) in the 1530 s; the meaning ‘circuit for telegraph communication’ (1848) probably led to that of ‘band of frequency for radio or TV signals’ (1928) – EtymOnline.

1. It was Engl that brought the semantic expansion in Ge from ‘basket’ to ‘container, can’ – DUDEN1963, Kluge2002. 2. There is, however, also the hypothesis that the word is of Germ origin (cognate of oNo kani ‘bowl’) – Kluge2002. 3. Sense of ‘walking stick’ in Engl is 1580 s – EtymOnline. 4. Engl cinnamon, in turn, was loaned in lC14 from oFr cinnamone (C13), which, like also Ge Zimt (C11, oHGe zi(na)mīn, cinamon, cinimin, mHGe zi(ne)min, zinment, zinmint) goes back to Lat cinnamum, cinnamomum ‘cinnamon’ (also used as a term of endearment), from Grk kinnámōn, from a Phoen word akin to (thus EtymOnline) or directly from (Kluge2002), Hbr qinnāmōn. The latter is believed to go back, ultimately, to Malay kayu manis ‘sweet cane, liquorice’ (kayu ‘wood, cane’, manis ‘sweet’) – Kluge2002.

deriv

► qanāẗ Bānamā, n., Panama Canal
► qanāẗ al-Suwēs, n., Suez Canal.
► qanāẗ damʕiyyaẗ, n.f., lachrymal canal.
► qanāẗ al-ʕalam, n., flagpole; lānat qanātu-hū, vb. I, to soften, relent; to yield, give in.

► qannà, vb. II, to dig (a canal): denom.
► qanāyaẗ, pl. ‑āt, n., small stream, rivulet, runnel, canal:…
► qunayyaẗ, n.f., cannula: dimin., neolog.

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