Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ Akk (stdBab) lupputu ‘damaged, soiled’; laptu, f. lapittu ‘damaged; anomalous’, liptu A ‘(handi)work, craft, creation (with ref. to human beings), touch (in the physical sense); affliction, disease; (discoloured) spot’, lipittu ‘disease, work, craft’ (CAD); ClassAr ^†ʔalfatᵘ ‘(he-goat) having crooked horn, having one of his horns twisted upon, or over the other (also lafat); (in the dial. of Qays) stupid, foolish, of little sense; of difficult or stubborn disposition (also: lafūt); (in the dial. of Tamīm) left-handed, who works with the left hand; (f. laftāʔᵘ) (woman) having distorted eyes’ (Lane vii 1885).

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▪ The meaning of the elative formation ʔalfatᵘ is probably dependent on ‘to (grasp and) turn, twist, overthrow’ as preserved in Ar ↗lafata ‘to turn aside’, as ‘left-handed’ originally seems to have been either *‘twisted, anomalous’, i.e., s.th. that is “the other way round, turned upside down”, or *‘having a focus on the one/other side (to which attention has been unduely attracted)’. The value ‘left-handed’ is the only meaning of ʔalfatᵘ that survived into MSA. But ClassAr, where it also can mean ^†‘having crooked horn’ (goat, cattle)’ and, in the dialect of Qays, ^†‘stupid, foolish’ or ^†‘of difficult or stubborn disposition’, or ‘having distorted eyes’, shows that ‘left-handed’ is only one out of a variety of meanings that developed from a more general *‘twisted, distorted, anomalous’. Cf. also the fact that ‘left-handed’, for some ClassAr lexicographers, seems to have been a specific use of the word in the dialect of the Tamīm tribe. This may be the reason why some dictionaries, among them also WKAS, do not list the value ‘left-handed’ at all.
▪ Another old meaning of ʔalfatᵘ, now obsolete, is ^†‘strong-handed, who hoists or wrings him who strives or grapples with him’ (TA, accord. to Lane vii 1885). This can be related directly to the primary value of √LFT, namely *‘to grasp, turn down, overthrow’, cf. ↗LFT, ↗lafata.

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► lafāt and lafūt, adj., ill-tempered, surly, sullen: like ‘left-handed’ belonging to the complex of *‘anomalous, distorted’, or rather developed from *‘turning around, looking around very much, be unquiet, distracted’ treated under ↗lafata ?

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