Bibliotheca Polyglotta

Formally, the word could be a vn. I of marasa ‘to soak and mash’. But the fact that it is found in Tu as mars (not *mers, as it should be if it was taken from an Ar mars) and that in Ott it is written with an ʔalif (mā̆rs), points to a non-Ar origin. For Redhouse, the word is Tu – but it does not look Tu at all. For BadawiHinds, it is of Pers origin – but I found neither an entry mars nor one mārs in a Pers dictionary.

hist

▪ Tu mars : 1876 written mārs, ‘to get all the tricks in a game, to win’ (Aḥmed Vefīḳ Paşa, Luġat-ı ʕOs̱mānī). Cf. also Redhouse1890 ‘1. (at cards) A game lost with all the tricks, 2. (at backgammon) A game lost without one piece removed from the board’.

cogn

…

disc

▪ BadawiHinds1986: from Pers mars ‘a round in backgammon in which the winner removes all his chips from the board before his opponent removes any, a gammon’. But this item is not to be found in Steingass or other dictionaries of Pers.
▪ Nişanyan (#mars, 2.9.14) sees the word as a vn. of ↗marasa ‘to soak’, in the specialized sense of ‘to sink’ (s.o.’s “ships” in a game). But this is unlikely: in Ottoman, the word is written with ʔalif, and the usual rendering of Ar mars should be *mers.
▪ Redhouse1890 identifies Ott mars (written mārs) as »T[urkish]«.

west

–

deriv

–

Permanent link

http://www2.hf.uio.no/common/apps/permlink/permlink.php?app=polyglotta&context=record&uid=da6bba4e-06ff-11ee-937a-005056a97067

Choose languages

Choose images, etc.

Choose languages

Choose display