Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ The original meaning is clearly ‘wing’.
▪ From there, metaphorical use (‘the "wings" of the night’, or ‘▪ … of the sun, heat’) is attested already in early poetry – Ullmann WKAS.
▪ [v2] and [v3] seem to be semantic extensions from ‘wing’.
▪
▪

cogn

▪ DRS 10 (2012)#KNP–1 Akk kapp‑, Ug knp ‘aile’, Hbr kānāp, JP kanpā, Syr kenᵉpā ‘aile, bord’, Ar kanaf, Sab Qat knf ‘côté, direction’, Gz Te Amh Arg kənf, Tñakənfi, Gur kanfa ‘aile’. –2 Hbr niknap ‘se cacher’; ? Ar ĭktanafa ‘entourer, encercler, cerner’.

disc

▪ DRS seems to hesitate to group the value ‘to surround, encircle, etc.’ together with ‘side, wing’. But it is not obvious why one should not do so.
▪ So also Ullmann, WKAS, who (for vb. I) separates the values 1. (kanafa, u, kanf) ‘to surround, enclose; to protect, guard’, and 2. (kanafa, u i, kanf, kunūf) ‘to erect, build an enclosure, a pen’.
▪ Kogan2011 reconstructs Sem *kanap‑ ‘wing’.

west

–

deriv

► fī kanaf…, prep., under cover of…, in an atmosphere of…
► ʕāša fī kanafi-hī, vb., he lived under his wing or his protection.
► fī ʔaknāfi-hī, adv., under his aegis, under his sponsorship.

► kanafa, u (kanf), vb. I, to guard, protect; to fence in, hedge, provide with an enclosure; to surround; to help, assist: denom. (*to spread a protecting wing over…; *to set up a "wing" = screen)
► kānafa, vb. III; and ʔaknafa, vb. IV, to shelter, protect, help, assist: assoc. (III) and denom. (IV).
► ĭktanafa, vb. VIII, to surround (on both sides), enclose, embrace; to encircle, encompass: (auto-)benefactive (*to take a wing as protection for o.s. or another).

► kanīf, pl. kunuf, n., water closet, toilet; public lavatory: pseudo-PP (*the enclosed, fenced place)? – See ↗s.v..
► muktanaf, adj., surrounded, enclosed (bi‑ by): PP VIII.

For other items of this root, see ↗√KNF and especially ↗kunāfaẗ.

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