Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Specialized meaning in Ar, from protCSem *laḥm‑ ‘(solid) food’ (Kogan2011), protSem *√LḤM ‘to eat’ (Huehnergard2011).
▪ The item may be akin to, if not even dependent on, Sem *LḤM ‘to be/get in close contact, be glued together, be compact, solid’ (= LḤM_2, see ↗laḥama).

hist

▪ …

cogn

▪ Orel/Stolbova 1994 #1642, Zammit 2002, Tropper 2008: Ug lḥm ‘food, bread; grain’, Phoen lḥm, Hbr läḥäm, TargAram lᵉḥēm, Syr laḥmā ‘bread, food’; Arab laḥm, laḥam ‘flesh, meat’. – Outside Sem: Cognates (acc. to Orel/Stolbova) in laam, laamu ‘meat’ in two WCh languages; note also Hs lamai ‘tuwo’. – Cf. also corresponding verbs: Akk laḫāmu (also leḫēmu, lêmu, leʔēmu, leʔāmu) ‘to consume, eat (and drink)’, Ug lḥm ‘to eat, devour’, Hbr läḥäm ‘to use as food, eat; to try, taste’.
▪ For further possible cognates cf. root entry ↗LḤM (for the general picture) as well as ↗laḥama (LḤM_2) and ↗malḥamaẗ (LḤM_3).

disc

▪ On account of the Sem evidence Orel/Stolbova 1994 #1642 reconstruct Sem *laḥm- ‘bread, food; meat’. Taken together with the WCh evidence, for which the authors reconstruct WCh *laHam- ‘meat’, they postulate a common origin in AfrAs *laḥam- ‘meat, food’.
▪ Huehnergard 2011 assumes Sem √LḤM ‘to eat’.
▪ For a discussion of the relation between ‘meat’, ‘bread’ and the more general ‘food’, cf. Guidi 1879, Fraenkel 1889, Krotkoff 1969.
▪ For an attempt to make Sem *laḥm‑ ‘(solid) food’ dependent on *LḤM ‘to be/get in close contact, be glued together, be compact, solid’ (LḤM_2), see Krotkoff 1969. If there is such dependence, then Ar laḥm ‘meat’ is akin to other items of the root, such as ↗laḥama ‘to mend, patch, weld, solder (up)’, II laḥḥama ‘to solder’, VIII ĭltaḥama ‘to adhere, stick to, cling to, fit closely, be interjoined, closely united; to scar over, cicatrize (wound)’, laḥmaẗ, luḥmaẗ ‘woof, weft (of a fabric), luḥmaẗ ‘relationship, kinship’, as well as to the complex of ‘battle, fighting, etc.’ (LḤM_3), cf. ↗malḥamaẗ.
▪ »Laḥm was used in Classical Arabic to designate any type of meat, including flesh (edible or not), and even the core of fruit. In present-day Arabic, the same word, while still used to designate flesh and still within the domain of edible meats, conveys (red) meats almost exclusively, while other types of meats are referenced often by the name of their animal source (e.g. dajāj ‘chicken’)« – Esseesy 2009.

west

▪ (Huehnergard2011:) Engl Bethlehem, from Hbr bêt-leḥem ‘house of bread’, from bêt ‘house’ (cf. Ar ↗bayt) and leḥem ‘bread’, cognate of Ar laḥm ‘meat’.

deriv

► bi-laḥmih wa-šaḥmih, expr., in his real human form; laḥman wa-daman, expr., dyed in the wool, inveterate

► laḥmaẗ, n.f., a piece of flesh or meat: n.un.
► laḥim, adj., fleshy, corpulent; carnivorous: adj. formation.
► laḥḥām, n., 1. butcher; 2. ↗laḥama : n.prof.
► laḥīm, adj., fleshy: quasi-PP.
► laḥāmaẗ, n.f., fleshiness, corpulence: n.abstr.

For other items of the root, cf. ↗laḥama and ↗malḥamaẗ and, for the general picture, root entry ↗LḤM.

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