What is the origin of the rabbinic word for "inn" - פונדק pundak?
Klein provides the following etymology:
From Greek pandakion, from pandokos (= innkeeper, host; literally 'all-receiving'), which is compounded of pan (= every), which is of uncertain origin, and dokos, which stands in gradational relationship to dekesthai ( = to receive), from IE base *dek-, *dok- (= to take, receive, accept; acceptable, becoming, good).
More common Greek transliterations are pandocheion and pandokeion.
Kutscher points out that the word entered into Arabic as well as fundaq, and in an interesting turn of events, Crusaders from Europe borrowed the word from Arabic back into European languages as either an inn or a storehouse. So this led to the Romanian fundac, the Italian fondaco, the Portuguese alfandega, and the Spanish fonda.
While it would have been an interesting connection, it does not appear that the surname Fonda is related to the Spanish word for tavern.
There are three words in Hebrew for wall - kir קיר, choma חומה, and kotel כותל. What is the difference between them?
All three are biblical, although kotel appears only once (Shir Hashirim 2:9). Let's look at each.
Kir - this is the most common word for "wall" in Modern Hebrew. Ben Yehuda and Even-Shoshan say it might be related to kora קורה - "beam". Klein says that it is perhaps related to the Akkadian qiru and Arabic qir, both meaning asphalt, and so the original meaning may have been "something paved or painted with asphalt."
Choma is generally used to describe the protective wall around a city. Klein's etymology reflects this sense, as he derives it from the root חמה, "to see, protect". That root is common in Aramaic, and is used in the declaration made when disowning any chametz before Pesach - כל חמירא .. דחמיתה ודלא חמיתה kol chamira ... d'chamitey u'dlo chamitey - "any chametz ... that I saw or did not see".
One interesting verse that uses both kir and choma is Yehoshua 2:15
וַתּוֹרִדֵ֥ם בַּחֶ֖בֶל בְּעַ֣ד הַֽחַלּ֑וֹן כִּ֤י בֵיתָהּ֙ בְּקִ֣יר הַֽחוֹמָ֔ה וּבַֽחוֹמָ֖ה הִ֥יא יוֹשָֽׁבֶת׃ This is the New JPS translation:
She
let them down by a rope through the window—for her dwelling was at the
outer side of the city wall (b'kir hachoma) and she lived in the actual wall (bachoma).
That translation has kir meaning "side" and choma meaning "wall." The JPS commentary on Bamidbar 35:4 expands on this idea and writes:
Hebrew kir, a rare word for a town wall. (The term elsewhere is homah.) It probably refers to the outside surface of the town wall (see kir ha-homah in Josh. 2:15).
Artscroll adjusts the phrasing slightly - "for her house was in a wall of the fortification, and she lived in the fortification." So in this case kir means wall, and choma means fortification. This fits the explanation of Daat Mikra on Yehoshua 2:15, who writes that in order to save on construction material it was common to include houses inside the city wall, and sometimes these houses would share their walls with the city walls. Kotel likely has Aramaic origins, and Klein points out that the Aramaic cognate כתלא kutla is probably a loan word from the Akkadian kutallu - "back side". It was used frequently in rabbinic Hebrew, but in modern Hebrew it's generally reserved to describe the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount - the kotel hamaaravi הכותל המערבי.
Until recently, I would have assumed the words masorah מסורה / masoret מסורת - "tradition" and musar מוסר - "ethics" all derived from the root מסר - "to hand over, deliver." However, a quick look at Klein's dictionary showed me that I was mistaken.
Here is his entry for masorah:
'Masorah' - the system of notes on the external form of the scriptural text of the Bible. [A secondary form of masoret. The word masoret is probably contracted from ma'asoret מאסרת and is formed with instrumental suffix ma_ from אסר (=to bind). Later, however, the word masorah was explained as the summary of traditions concerning the correct writing and reading of the Bible and, accordingly, was regarded as a derivative of the verb מסר (= to hand down, hand over).]
From the root אסר - "bind, tie, imprison", we also get the words asur אסור - "prohibited", asir אסיר - "prisoner" and isru chag אסרו חג.
Musar, however, has a different source. Klein writes that it originally meant "chastisement, discipline, correction" and derives from the root יסר - "to chasten". This is the root of yisurim יסורים - "suffering, affliction" (only found in the plural). He adds that it is probably related to the root אסר (perhaps prisoners were likely to be disciplined, or those disciplined were likely to be bound).
None of the above are related to the word for the cutting tool "saw" - מסור masor. That derives from the root נסר - "to saw." Both masor and nasar appear in their Biblical form with a sin, not a samech - so in Yeshaya 10:15 we have masor as משור.
A reader asked me if there was any connection between two meanings of the root גור - "to dwell" and "to fear". As you might imagine, it depends who you ask.
Klein does not connect the various meanings. He provides a number of roots - each with their own etymology:
גור meaning "to sojourn, dwell". From here we get the words ger גר (biblically a stranger, in rabbinic and later Hebrew a convert), and migurim מגורים - "residence." He finds cognates in the Arabic jawara (=was the neighbor of) and giwar (= neighborhood). He writes that "the original meaning of this base probably was 'to turn off, leave the way', whence 'to be a stranger, to sojourn.'".
גור meaning "to fear". Klein writes that this is a secondary form of the root יגר, which is cognate to the Arabic wajira (=he feared). Derivatives of this root include magor מגור and migora מגורה - both meaning "fear, terror".
גור meaning "to attack." Klein finds another Arabic cognate - jara'al (=he acted wrongfully against) and says it is possible related to the base גרה meaning "to excite, provoke, irritate, tease, incite, stir up.". This is the origin of the word גרוי gerui - "irritation".
גור - gur: this last meaning is a noun - "cub, whelp". It has cognates in a number of Semitic languages, including Arabic jarw, jirw and Akkadian gerru - both meaning "whelp."
So it seems that Klein does not find any connections. Gesenius, on the other hand, does find ways to connect them.
Like Klein, he says that the original meaning of גור was "to turn aside from the way." But he manages to see that root in many of the meanings. He writes that גור is cognate to זור - which Klein also defines as "turn aside, be a stranger" (and is the origin of zar זר - "stranger" and muzar מוזר - "strange".) However, Klein doesn't connect גור and זור, but rather writes that זור is connected to סור - which also means "to turn aside."
In any case, back to Gesenius. The sense "to sojourn, dwell" originally meant "to tarry anywhere, as a sojourner and a stranger." Regarding "fear", he writes "this signification is taken from that of turning aside, since one who is timid and fearful of another, goes out of the way and turns aside from him.". And he provides two theories as to gur meaning "whelp". One is from a separate root meaning "a suckling", but a second theory says it is "so called as still sojourning under the care of its mother." (He does not connect the sense "to attack" to this common root).
Who is right? My gut instinct tells me to follow Klein, since he lived about 100 years later than Gesenius and so had the benefit of hindsight and perspective. But there is still something persuasive in the argument of Gesenius. I'll leave it to you readers to see who convinced you more. You can turn away from the theory you find less convincing, but if you have doubts, don't dwell in fear...
There are four different biblical words that all can mean "nation". Since they originate at the same time period, it will be difficult for me to say that they had precise differences back then. However, since that time, the meanings have evolved. Let's take a look:
Am עם: This is by far the most common biblical word. In his concordance, Even-Shoshan lists 1850 uses! Most of them mean "nation", while a fraction mean "crowd or group", humanity, or a group of animals. Aside from this last definition, they can all be included in the general definition of "people".
It's interesting to note that Even-Shoshan has a second, independent entry for am meaning "relative". This is found in phrases where a person is described as being buried with his am, being punished by being cut off from his am, or the relatives for whom a kohen can become ritually impure to bury. Stahl points out (in his Arabic dictionary) that the Arabic cognate 'amm means "father's brother" and that in Hebrew the original meaning was "father", which later expanded to "family, clan" and eventually "nation". He writes that this explains how the two children of Lot were given parallel names - Moav מואב - "from father" and Ben-Ami בן-עמי - "the son of my father".
Klein writes that both the meaning "people" and "kinsman" derive from the root עמם - "to join, connect", from where we also get the word im עם meaning "with".
In Modern Hebrew, am has more of an ethnic, and less of a political sense. Am Yisrael, the nation or people of Israel, is not limited to citizens of a particular nation-state.
Goy גוי: In the Tanach, goy also appears frequently (556 times) meaning "nation" (like am it has a couple of appearances meaning a pack of animals). Klein says that it is of uncertain etymology, and is possibly related to gev גו - "body" so originally denoted an ethnic "body". In these occasions goy is often used to refer to Israel (either individually, or as a member of the greater set of world nations). Only in post-biblical Hebrew did goy take on the meaning of "non-Jew" or "Gentile." Radak writes that the reason goy became the term for a non-Jew was because in Talmudic times it was unclear which Biblical nation non-Jewish individuals originated from, so the generic goy, nation, was used.
During the exile, and particularly in Yiddish, the word goy took on a derogatory note, and so today there are more polite alternatives to refer to a non-Jew. In English there is "gentile" (although somewhat archaic) and in Hebrew a better word is nochri נכרי.
Leom לאום: Leom appears far less frequently in the Tanach than the previous two terms - it is found 35 times (and is spelled there without the vav - לאם). Klein doesn't offer an etymology, but finds cognates in the Akkadian li'mu, limu - "thousand", Ugaritic l'm - "people, crowd" and Arabic la'ama - "he gathered together, assembled". Since it did not have the frequency and weight of am or goy, it was available in modern Hebrew for the new terms related to the modern nation-state and nationalism. Perhaps this usage was influenced by the Talmudic passage in Avoda Zara 2b where a midrash states that אין לאום אלא מלכות - leom always means a kingdom.
In Modern Hebrew we find the word used most frequently in the adjectival form - leumi לאומי - "national": Bank Leumi, Sherut Leumi (national service), Bituach Leumi (national insurance), etc. The noun has migrated to the meaning "nationality", as can be found on identity cards.
Uma אומה: This is the most infrequent of the four terms in biblical Hebrew. It only appears three times, always in the plural - umot אומות in Bereshit 25:16 and Bamidbar 25:15, and umim אומים in Tehilim 117:1. The singular is therefore unattested in the Biblical text, but the assumption is that the male and female forms are om אום and uma אומה. Klein isn't sure about the etymology, saying that it is cognate with similar words in other Semitic languages, like the Arabic 'ummah (which actually is more of a religious group, and so the religious leader is the related imam).
In Modern Hebrew it is used for "nation" in cases where neither medina מדינה - "state" nor am are appropriate (and again, leom is generally reserved for adjectives). So an address to the nation will be a נאום לאומה neum leuma and the United Nations are אומות מאוחדות umot meuchadot (generally abbreviated to או"ם um).
Is there a connection between the word zera זרע - "seed" and the skin affliction tzaraat צרעת - (frequently, although perhaps inaccurately, translated as "leprosy")?
The noun zera derives from the root זרע. In the kal form (zara), it means "to sow" or "to scatter seeds". In the hifil form, hizria הזריע it takes on the meaning "to inseminate." The word z'roa זרוע - "arm", or metaphorically "strength, might" looks like it comes from the same root. However, based on the Arabic cognates, we can see that they are not related. Zera is cognate with Arabic zara'a, whereas z'roa is cognate with dhira in Arabic.
Klein writes that tzaraat comes from the root צרע - "to become leprous." He says that it is cognate with the Arabic sara'a - "he threw to the ground, threw down" and sar' - "epilepsy". He adds that the biblical word tzir'a צרעה - "wasp, hornet", may also be related to the root meaning "he threw to the ground." He doesn't explain how either tzaraat or tzir'a are related to throwing down, but the BDB elaborates and says that tzir'a may have an original sense of "wounding, prostrating". In the notes in Ben Yehuda's dictionary, a theory is suggested that tzaarat is so named because it cause the person to literally "fall" ill.
Since sowing seeds involves throwing them on the ground, I thought perhaps the two roots might be related. However, I could not find any reliable sources that could prove such a connection, so I won't make such a claim. Another thing I noticed is that a number of Hebrew roots beginning with the letters זר have an association with throwing. Most obvious would be זרק - "to throw", and זרה - "to scatter, winnow". Perhaps one could also include זרם and זרף - both meaning "to flow." Again, I didn't find any master theory connecting these roots.
What do I do with a theory like this? Throw it away, or scatter the seeds to future readers, hoping that someday I'll be able to reap what I sow?
Last week we discussed the root דמם, meaning "to be silent". Today we'll take a look at a synonym - the root חרש, which can also mean "to be silent, be mute, be deaf." This root gives us the words cheresh חרש - "deaf", charisha חרישה - "silence" and even macharish מחריש which means "shout down" or "drown out", but literally means "deafening", so is related to this root. One other possible related word is chorsha חורשה - "thicket, small forest", since based on Shmuel I 23:19 it was a place for hiding, which has an association with silence. But most sources say the ultimate etymology of chorsha is not clear.
Is there any connection between the root חרש as "to be silent" and another root, with the same spelling, meaning "to cut in, engrave, plow"? We actually discussed this back in 2007, quoting Horowitz as saying the two aren't related, and points out that the shin in each root is actually a different letter. The proof of this is that in other Semitic languages (in this case Syriac) we see that the shin in the root meaning "plow" becomes a tav, but not in the root meaning "silent". And indeed, the root חרת in Hebrew also means "to engrave".
As we've mentionedpreviously, the question of two letter roots in Hebrew is still very much undecided. But whatever the explanation, there are many roots in Hebrew beginning with the letters חר that have a meaning connected to "engrave" or "cut." Let's take a look at some:
חרב - cherev חרב means "sword" and Akkadian harbu is a kind of plow. We've seen before that charuv חרוב - "carob" derives from the sword shape of the fruit.
חרז - charuz חרוז is a string of beads, which came from the idea of piercing together. Later, charuz came to mean "rhyme", by analogy (influenced by Arabic) with arranging words like pearls or beads, with the rhyming syllables at the end of the verse.
חרט - a cheret חרט is a graving tool, stylus
חרף - charif חריף means "sharp"
חרץ - the root means "to cut, cut in" and may be related to the word charutz חרוץ meaning "gold"
חרק - this root can mean "to grind or gnash", "to notch, indent" and "to cut, make incisions." This last meaning gave the Hebrew word for insect - cherek חרק, which is a loan translation from the Latin insectum, literally "(animal) cut into"
חרר - to make a hole, bore through. This is the root of the word chor חור - "hole."
One word that has a possible connection to this meaning is cheres חרס - "clay, earthenware". The earlier spelling was cheres חרש (with a sin). Klein does say it is related to the Arabic root h-r-sh, "to scratch, to be rough". If this is the case, we can also add to our list of cognates charoset חרוסת - the food eaten on Pesach which is reminiscent of "clay."
Is there any connection between the Hebrew homographs domeh - "similar" and dumah - "silence", both spelled דומה?
Let's look at domeh first. The root is דמה, meaning "to be like, resemble, to be equal in value." The verb's meaning progressed from "likened" to "compared" to "considered" to "imagined". From this root, with the various meanings, we get quite a few common words, including:
demut דמות - in Biblical Hebrew it meant "likeness" or "image". In modern Hebrew it primarily means "personality."
dimyon דמיון - It only appears once in Tanach (Tehilim 17:12), with a similar meaning to demut, with the meaning "similarity", which it still has today. In modern Hebrew it also has the meaning "imagination" - perhaps in a similar way that "image" and "imagination" are related in English.
tadmit תדמית - This word means "image" or "perception", particularly how one is perceived by others.
demai דמאי - This is a halachic term for "produce not certainly tithed".While there are a number of folk etymologies for the word, Klein derives it from our root דמה and says it literally means "seeming, apparent".
damim דמים - Klein says this post-biblical word meaning "money, value, price" is probably derived from the root דמה meaning "to be like", in the sense "to be equal". (There are, however, many drashot that connect damim as money to dam דם - "blood").
Dumah, however, meaning "silence" has a different root - דמם. It appears once in the Tanach (Yechezkel 27:32), and has a cognate synonym in demama דממה. Other related words are domem דומם - "inanimate matter", and דמדם - "to be in a daze, confused", which gives the word dimdum דמדום - "dim light".
This root, דמם, "to be or grow dumb or silent" has cognates in many Semitic languages, such as Ugaritic, Aramaic, Arabic and Ethiopian.
You might have noticed that the English word "dumb", originally meaning "silent" has a similar sound to the Hebrew root. However, they are not related. All research I could find says that the English word "dumb" comes from the Indo-European root *dhumbh, which is (as Klein writes) "a nasalized form of base *dhubh or *dheubh, 'to fill with smoke, to cloud darken; to be dumb, dull, or deaf.". Cognate words in English may include deaf, dove, typhus and stove.
Now, I know that the Hebrew and English words sound similar. And they both have similar meanings - both "mute" and "confused". But while this is a good example of using your dimyon, they don't have the same roots. Remember the helpful Hebrew phrase דומה אך שונה - "similar, yet different."
A reader asked if there is any connection between yakar יקר - "precious" and makor מקור - "source". As far as I can tell there is no relationship between the two, but that's no reason not to take a quick look at the etymology of each.
Yakar originally meant precious or honored, and over time came to mean "costly" as well. It has cognates in many other Semitic languages. In modern Hebrew, the related term yukra יוקרה - "prestige" was coined.
Makor has a more complicated story. It has biblical origins, and Klein points out that the earliest meaning was "spring, fountain" (as in Yirmiya 2:13), and only later did it gain the more general meanings of "source" and "origin" (and "original"). He writes that the root of the word is קור, meaning "to dig".
A homograph is makor meaning "beak". This was originally a Talmudic word meaning "millstone, chisel", but Ben Yehuda gave it the new meaning of beak, on the basis of the Aramaic makora מקורא. This makor has a different root נקר - "to pick, peck, pierce." (Another difference is that the plural of makor as "source" is mekorot, and the plural of makor as "beak" is makorim.)
However, Klein points out that the root נקר also means "to dig" and is related to the root קור we saw above. From נקר we get many related words such as nikur ניקור - "gouging" and nikra נקרה - "cave, grotto" (as in Rosh Hanikra). This root has Arabic cognates as well, and one of them may be the source of the word "nacre", meaning "mother of pearl", which has the following etymology:
1590s, "type of shellfish that yields mother-of-pearl," from Middle French nacre (14c.), from Italian naccaro (now nacchera), possibly from Arabic naqur "hunting horn" (from nakara "to hollow out"), in reference to the shape of the mollusk shell. Meaning "mother-of-pearl" is from 1718.
The root קור appears only twice in the Bible (Melachim II 19:24 and Yeshaya 37:25) meaning "to dig for water." This leads me to an interesting etymological connection that I'm not entirely sure about.
In his entry for קרר, the root of kar קר meaning "cold", Klein writes that it is possibly related to Arabic qarara, meaning "depth of a well". Would that mean that kar is also related to the words we've discussed meaning "dig"? Any readers out there with more knowledge of Arabic than I have that could help?
A reader asked about the origin of and difference between the two Hebrew words lama למה and madua מדוע, both generally translated into English as "why". Let's take a look.
Madua appears in biblical Hebrew (but is not found in rabbinic Hebrew). Klein provides the following etymology:
Contraction of מה ידוע ma yadua (=what is known? i.e. 'for what reason').
And reflecting that etymology, it refers specifically to the cause (in the past) of a thing, event, etc.
Lama has a wider background and usage than madua, and is used more frequently today (madua is considered much more formal). Lama is also found in biblical Hebrew but appears in rabbinic Hebrew as well. It also can refer to the cause of a thing, but can also ask "what is the purpose, aim". Its etymology shows that flexibility, for it is a contraction of ל-מה "for what". Lama asks about cause in Bereshit 4:7, 12:18 and about purpose in Shemot 5:22 and Iyov 30:2.
In this way, lama is indeed similar to the English "why", which contains both aspects - past and future. In other languages, there are different words for each meaning. For example, German has warum for "cause" and wozu for "purpose", and the same phenomenon can be found in other European languages.
Creating a dichotomy between lama and madua (even if it's not always faithful to the biblical lama, as we have seen), allows for some powerful interpretations about how we understand the world.
For example, in this fascinating video, Rabbi David Fohrman confronts the question that Moshe asks God after the sin of the golden calf (Shemot 32:11) לָמָה ה' יֶחֱרֶה אַפְּךָ בְּעַמֶּךָ - "Why (lama), God, should you be angry at your people?" Rabbi Fohrman asks:
What is he talking about? Why should you be angry at your people? They are supposed to be accepting the Torah, and they are dancing around a golden calf, an idol that they have made with their very own hands, and you have the chutzpah to ask God, ‘Why should you be angry with your people?’ What is he talking about?
But then later he answers:
So here you have to understand the crucial distinction between the two Hebrew words for ‘why’, lamah and madua. Why would one language have two words for ‘why’ unless they didn’t mean the same thing? Madua, from the word mada, is the scientific ‘why’. It means what happened in the past to cause the present state of affairs? When Moses looked at the burning bush, madua lo-yivar hasneh, what is it about this bush that causes it not to burn? It is a question about the past that would explain the present. But that is not the only kind of ‘why’ that you can ask. You can ask a different kind of ‘why’. A lamah kind of ‘why’. Lamah is a contraction of ‘le mah’, to what, for what, for what purpose. It is a question about the future.
Yes, I understand what happened to make you angry, God. That’s not my question, we all get that. The question is, where will this anger take you? Let’s read the rest of the words. Lamah yechereh apcha be’amecha. Moshe says, ‘why should you be angry with your people?’ Don’t say it is my people, it is your people. You are attached to them whether you like it or not.
In that case, by using the word lama, Moshe was challenging God - and in the end was successful. A different case, where we need to make sure we ourselves are asking lama and not madua is found in this powerful story:
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I found myself on the uptown campus of Yeshiva University. As it was for the entire country and for much of the world, initial reactions to the attacks on the World Trade Center were little more than shock and disbelief. Particularly for those located so close to the disaster, it was difficult to absorb what transpired that morning.
In response to the events of the morning, student leaders at Yeshiva quickly organized an outdoor Mincha and Tehillim rally. The main speaker at this rally was Rabbi Norman Lamm … There is one thought that he stressed that I have not forgotten. David Hamelech exclaims in Tehillim "keili keili lama azavtani?". [“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”] Rabbi Shimshon Rephael Hirsh explains that in Hebrew, one can ask "why" with the use of the word madua or of the word lama. The word madua means why in its purest sense, wanting to know the reason behind something, what caused it to happen. On the other hand, lama comes from the words "le ma," literally "to what," trying to figure out not what caused something to happen, but rather what is the purpose that is meant to come out of the occurrence. And so when David Hamelech feels deserted by Hashem, he does not ask madua. It is not his place to question the causes of the actions of Hashem. Rather he asks lama. What is meant to come out of the actions of Hashem? What responsibilities do they place upon me?
This must be our response to tragedy as well, explained Rabbi Lamm to the hundreds of students and faculty assembled on the lawn outside of Rubin Hall. It is futile to try to understand the reasons or causes for such a horrible occurrence. What we can do, however, is to try our best to figure out the ends to which events such as the attacks of September 11th are meant to bring about in our lives.
In general on this site, I focus on the "madua" - why words came to take the meanings they have. But it is important not to forget the "lama" - what purpose words can have. In the week between Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) and Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day for Israeli soldiers and victims of terror), this is indeed a very appropriate message.
The Hebrew root עבר is extremely common, and in general means "to pass" or "to pass over". (Despite the similarity to the English word "over", there is no etymological connection). There are a number of related terms that derive from this meaning:
עבר can also mean to impregnate (from the sense of "to pass the seed"). From here we get the word עובר ubar - "fetus" and a leap year is known as a שנה מעוברת - shana meuberet.
עברה evra means "anger", and Klein says it's related to עבר in the sense of "carried away by anger". He also provides two alternative etymologies- from Arabic gharb (passion, violence) or Arabic ghabira (=he bore ill will).
עברי Ivri and עברית Ivrit mean "Hebrew". While there are many theories as to the etymology of Ivri (and because it's a proper noun it's more difficult to track), one of them derives it from the related ever עבר - "side", and therefore literally means "one from beyond (the Euphrates)". Perhaps I'll do a more extensive post on this some day.
The root can have a positive connotation, such as over mivchan עובר מבחן - "pass a test". But today I want to focus on the negative sense - "to transgress". It appears 18 times in the Tanach (a small fraction of the over 500 appearances of the verb alone), and generally refers to a transgression against God. Even-Shoshan in his concordance says it is related to the meaning "pass" in the sense of "avoid, evade", and frequently means "did not fulfill or keep" (the covenant or God's command). The BDB has the passing in a different direction, and says it meant "overstep". This would give a similar sense to the English word "trespass", and in fact the word "transgression" itself has a similar etymology:
late 14c., from Old French transgression "transgression," particularly that relating to Adam and the Fall (12c.), from Late Latin transgressionem (nominative transgressio) "a transgression of the law," in classical Latin, "a going over, a going across," noun of action from transgressus, past participle of transgredi "step across, step over; climb over, pass, go beyond," from trans- "across" + gradi (past participle gressus) "to walk, go"
In Biblical Hebrew, we don't find this root in a noun form. There are other words for sin, such as chet חטא, pesha פשע and avon עון. However, in Talmudic Hebrew, we are introduced to a new noun - aveira עבירה. Avera can also mean "sin", but has a more general sense of "transgression or offence" as in averot between a person and his fellow עבירות בין אדם לחברו. In modern Hebrew it can mean "crime or violation", as in a traffic violation עבירת תנועה - aveirat tenua.
I recently read a fascinating book by Ruth Gruber - Ahead of Time, My Early Years as a Foreign Correspondent. Ruth, the Jewish daughter of European immigrants in New York, describes her travels to Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. These were captivating accounts, but one particular passage in her home in Brooklyn in the 1930s caught my eye. She describes the loft, over the garage, that her father suggested she move in to. It had been previously occupied by her brother Harry (a doctor). She writes:
You entered the loft by climbing a ladder inside the garage and pushing up a latch-door. Once hay had been hoisted up through the big front hatchway for the horses quartered below. Harry had turned part of the loft into his operating lab, the rest was the avayra room
When I first read this, I stopped midsentence (as I'm quoting it to you here). What exactly took place in an "avayra room"? What sins? What crimes?
But then she continues:
for things that were an avayra, a shame to throw out—family portraits, diplomas, clothes to be sent to the relatives in Europe.
After taking a breath of relief, I suddenly realized that I knew this particular sense of aveira already. My great-aunt Mollie, who was born just a few years before Ruth (also to European immigrants, but to Boston instead of New York), used to talk about "aveira fat". This meant the fat you gained by eating things that were a shame (an aveira) to throw out. I'm certainly familiar with this type of weight gain, but I always thought that was a strange turn of phrase (particularly considering that I rarely heard Mollie use any Hebrew or Yiddish words). But now it seems that this was a particular sense of the word aveira, perhaps even specifically used by immigrants to the United States. I'm going to continue using the phrase "aveira fat". It would be a shame to let it go to waste!
Two Hebrew words that seem to have similar roots, but very different meanings are rahut רהוט - "fluent" and rahit רהיט - "furniture" (as in a piece of furniture, the general term for furniture is rihut ריהוט).
Let's look at rahut first. This derives from the Aramaic root רהט, meaning "to run", and it's cognate with the Hebrew equivalent - רוץ. (The letters tzade and tet can switch between Hebrew and Aramaic, as can also be seen in the words tzel צל - "shade" and טלל - "to overshadow", the root of talit טלית). From the meaning "to run", we also get "to flow". This meaning appears in the word rahat רהט meaning "watering trough" in Bereshit 30:38,41 and Shemot 2:16, as well as the word rahut, which is first found in Medieval Hebrew (fluent and flow are related in English as well).
The story of rahit is less clear. It only appears once in the Tanach, in Shir HaShirim 1:17
קֹרוֹת בָּתֵּינוּ אֲרָזִים רַהִיטֵנוּ בְּרוֹתִים
"Cedars are the beams of our house, our rafters (rahiteinu) are cypresses"
Rahit as "rafter" appears in Talmudic Hebrew as well, but only in modern times did the meaning change to "furniture." Why?
In this article (and here in Hebrew), Elon Gilad writes that the synonym used in the verse, kora קורה - "beam" had become much more popular, and so rahit was in danger of being forgotten. So Eliezer Ben-Yehuda rescued the word for the concept of "furniture", which was no longer an item just for the rich. He was influenced by the Arabic word rihat, which had a similar meaning. Stahl adds that in the Talmud we find the phrase רהיטי ביתו - rihitei beito, which then meant "the rafters of his house", but the early writers of modern Hebrew would find that an appropriate phrase for various articles used in the house.
The only question that remains is, are the two terms related? Klein doesn't say so, but there are some sources that hint to a possibility. The Daat Mikra on Bereshit 30:38 points out that the troughs were made of korot (beams), but doesn't actually say that this indicates a connection between rahat and rahit. Steinberg, in Milon HaTanach, does say they derive from the same root, but doesn't explain how. Similarly, in this more recent book a connection is made, but I don't quite understand (other than an Aramaic connection).
The best citation I could find that does connect the terms is the BDB, which defines rafters as "strips running between beams." We find that usage in English as well, for a "runner" can also mean something spanning some distance, as in the runners of a sled or a carpet spanning a hallway.
Not long ago, on Purim, we read Megilat Esther, and in the megila appears the word pitgam פתגם. The word also appears in other late biblical books such as Kohelet, Ezra and Daniel. In Biblical Hebrew the word means "edict" or "decree", but in modern Hebrew the sense is less strict, and means "idiom" or "proverb".
What is the etymology of the word? Klein mentions Aramaic and Syriac cognates pitgama פתגמא meaning "word, command", and writes that they are all
borrowed from Persian. Compare Old Persian pratigama, Persian *patgam, which properly mean 'that which has come to, that which has arrived'
Since Persian is an Indo-European language, I was curious if there were any cognates in English. This site and this book suggest that patgam is cognate with the Greek pthegma which means "(spoken) word", and is found in the English word apophthegm, which more commonly appears in American English as apothegm - meaning "pithy saying" - nearly an identical meaning to the modern sense of pitgam in Hebrew. (I don't have evidence that the Greek sense influenced the modern meaning, but on the other hand, I don't know why there was a change from the Biblical - and Rabbinic - meanings to the modern one).
The Online Etymology Dictionary has this etymology for apothegm:
from Greek apophthegma "terse, pointed saying," literally "something clearly spoken," from apophthengesthai "to speak one's opinion plainly," from apo- "from" + phthengesthai "to utter."
Another word on that site with a common origin is diphthong:
late 15c., from Middle French diphthongue, from Late Latin diphthongus, from Greek diphthongos "having two sounds," from di- "double" + phthongos "sound, voice," related to phthengesthai "utter, speak loudly."
We've seen the concept of diphthong on Balashon before, even though I didn't use the official term, when we discussed the origins of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The letter "bet" derives from the word bayit בית (house). Some locations in ancient Israel pronounced words with a diphthong - bayit, yayin, zayit and others without - bet, yen, zet. The versions without the diphthong are preserved such cases as the letter "bet" and in the semichut form.
Is there a connection between the words sipuk סיפוק - "satisfaction" and safek ספק - "doubt"? They both appear to have the same root, but no obvious connection springs to mind. Let's take a closer look.
If we look in the Tanach, we notice two things. First of all, the root appears also with the letter sin - שפק. (By Rabbinic Hebrew, however, we only see it with a samech.) Secondly, there is a third meaning - "to strike" or "to clap (hands)". In fact, this meaning is the most common one found (even though it is almost never used in modern Hebrew). According to Even-Shoshan's concordance, it accounts for all seven times the root ספק appears in the Tanach.
Even-Shoshan claims that the root שפק means "to satisfy" three times - twice as a verb (Melachim I 20:10, Yeshaya 2:6) and once as a noun (Iyov 20:22). In modern Hebrew we find many uses of ספק meaning "to be sufficient, to suffice". The piel form - sipek סיפק can mean both "to satisfy" and "to supply". The hifil form hispik הספיק can also mean "to supply", but also can mean "to be sufficient, adequate, enough" and " to enable, to succeed". So if I write הספקתי לכתוב hispakti l'khtov - that means "I succeeded in writing" (usually within a desired period of time). The hitpael form הסתפק histapek means "to be satisfied, content". And of course the exclamation מספיק maspik - means "enough!".
What about safek meaning doubt? It appears frequently from Rabbinic Hebrew onwards, but it's not clear if it is found in Biblical Hebrew as well. The one verse that might have that usage is Iyov 36:18. The verse says כִּי-חֵמָה פֶּן-יְסִיתְךָ בְסָפֶק (this is the form in the Aleppo and Leningrad codices, but many printed variants have בשפק). The Koren Tanach translates the word v'safek using the sense of clapping hands:
"But beware of wrath, lest he take thee away with his clenched fist"
The New JPS translation connects the word to the meaning "to satisfy":
"Let anger at his affluence not mislead you"
A third possibility, that it means "doubt" is mentioned by a number of scholars - Even Shoshan in his concordance (although he does follow this up with a question mark), Klein in his dictionary (quoting "some scholars") and in the notes to Ben Yehuda's dictionary which mentions translators and commentators that explain the word as "doubt or hesitation". Aside from the Malbim (who I doubt they were referring to), I was unable to find which translations give this explanation for safek.
Now back to my original question - do these roots have any connection? Klein does not connect them at all, and even Steinberg in his Milon HaTanach, who frequently makes clever, if not convincing, connections between similar roots, doesn't connect the meanings "satisfy" and "doubt". (He does, however, say that the sense "to strike" and "satisfy, abundance" both derive from a sense meaning "to make a lot of noise" - applying to the sound of the striking, as well as the noise from a home with much wealth.)
I was surprised, however, to find that Even-Shoshan in his dictionary did make a connection. Regarding safek meaning "doubt", he says that perhaps it comes from an earlier sense meaning "bound" - in other words, a thing in doubt is "bound up" until it is solved. This sense of "bound" is found in Talmudic Hebrew, for example in the Mishna (Para 12:1 - although Kehati there says the word has the sense of "adequate"). Even-Shoshan then writes the meaning "to join, attach" is related to the meaning "to suffice" (as does Klein). They don't explain why - but perhaps when you supply something to a person, or they have a sufficient amount, it is as if that thing is attached to them.
Are you satisfied that the words are related? I'm in doubt...
The word "frank" (or its cognates) is an interesting one. All over the world, it refers to Westerners (as viewed by locals), but in Israeli slang, it's a derogatory term for Sephardic / Mizrahi Jews (as used by Ashkenazim). How did this happen?
According to this Philologos post, and this Language Hat post, the French were the ones leading the initial Crusades, and so they became known as the standard European foreigner. Philologos mentions the following cognates in many languages - all over the world:
Greek frangos, “Westerner”; Turkish frenk, “European” (frengi in Turkish means syphilis, for which the Turks had Europe to thank); Syriac frang, “European”; Persian ferang, ditto; Amharic frenj, “White Man”; southern Indian farangi or pirangi, “European” or “White Man”; Thai farang, ditto; Cambodian barang, ditto; Vietnamese pha-lang-xa, ditto; Malaysian ferringi, ditto; Indonesian barang, goods sold by a foreign trader; Samoan papalangi, “foreigner.” (Other derivations for papalangi, however, also have been given.)
In fact, the name might even extend beyond our planet. He mentions the Ferengi of Star Trek, whose name might have the same source. (We've seen Star Trek here before).
In Hebrew slang, the term franji פרנג'י means "to dress fancily, in a European style". But this phrase is not in common use today (in fact, I'm not sure if I've ever heard it myself). However, the pejorative frank (actually better spelled frenk), which sometimes in Hebrew is still spelled in the Yiddish style פרענק instead of the Hebrew פרנק, is still heard (if not in polite company).
Why in this case are the Ashkenazi westerners calling the "local" Sephardim by this term? Ruvik Rosenthal writes here that the usage derives from the Spanish word "Francos", which had the same meaning we've seen before - Western Europeans as viewed by people in the East. In this case it referred to Sephardic Jews who migrated to the land of Israel from Spain and the Balkans. The local Jews referred to them as Europeans, and when the Ashkenazi Jews immigrated to Israel, they referred to all Sephardim as "frenks" - and the sense became much more insulting.
A different form of the root פרנק, which is much more positive, but unrelated to the modern use is found in the midrash. For example in Midrash Tanaim on Devarim 32:2 it says that the words of Torah are מעדנים and מפרנקים - "refreshing" and "pampering". However this root is simply an expansion of the root פנק - also meaning "to spoil, pamper", and the Midrash Sifrei on the same verse uses מפנקים instead of מפרנקים. The root פנק appears once in the Bible, in Mishlei 29:21 - מְפַנֵּק מִנֹּעַר עַבְדּוֹ - "a slave pampered from youth". In Modern Hebrew we see the word pinuk פינוק with both the positive connotation of "pampering" and the negative connotation of "spoiling". Like with the previous meaning, what can be fancy and pleasant to some, can be overindulgent and arrogant to others...
Italian regional (northern) articiocco (16th cent.), apparently < Spanish alcarchofa (1492; now usually alcachofa ) or its etymon Spanish Arabic al-ḵaršūfa < al- the + ḵaršūfa , regional variant (also ḵaršafa , ḵuršūfa ) of classical Arabic ḥaršafa (compare modern standard Arabic ḵuršūfa ), singular form corresponding to ḥaršaf , collective noun (compare modern standard Arabic ḵuršūf ), further etymology unknown.
Despite the ominous "further etymology unknown", I got curious - could there be a connection to a Hebrew word?
First of all, I should point out that the Jerusalem artichoke has nothing to do with Jerusalem. It gets its name from an alteration of the Italian girasole, meaning sunflower. (They are also called "sunchokes" - which is my preferred name for them.)
But what about the "original" artichoke? They do appear in Jewish tradition - potentially very far back. After Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, God cursed them saying they would eat "thorns and thistles" קוֹץ וְדַרְדַּר - kotz and dardar. The midrash (Bereshit Rabba 20:10) identifies them with kinras קינרס and akavit עכבית, but isn't sure which Biblical word matches with which Talmudic one. The gemara in Beitza (34a) points out that they both require effort before they are edible, and Rashi on the verse in Bereshit explains that this is the nature of the curse.
Kinras iscognate with the Latin word cynara - the name of the genus, and the Greek kynára, which may be named for the island Kinaros, or maybe the island is named for the plant. Avshalom Kor here proposes an interesting theory that the Kinneret lake may be named for the artichokes that grew on its shore, and that the Greeks actually borrowed a Semitic word, כינר kinar, that was later reintroduced to Hebrew in Talmudic times as kinras. .Kinras and akavit refer to artichokes and the related cardoon, both of which do require significant preparation to eat. In fact, the Rambam in his commentary on the Mishna (Uktzin 1:6), which mentions kinras (in some versions as kunras קונרס and even as kundas קונדס, but that seems to be a typographical error), gives the Arabic version as אלחרשף, and says that in the west, it is known as אלכ'רשף. These match up with the etymologies we saw above for artichoke.
In Modern Hebrew the official word for artichoke is churshaf (or charshof) חרשף (derived from the Arabic, and coined in the Middle Ages), but I've only seen "artichoke" ארטישוק used.
So while we can trace the concept of artichoke back to earlier periods, we still haven't answered my question about any Semitic cognates to harsaf. I have a possible lead, but I'm really not sure - and I welcome your input.
hharshaf : fish scales [Akk arsuppu (carp)] Per charshaf borrowed from Ara
The Concise Dictionary of Akkadian has a similar entry, saying the Akkadian arsuppu and ersuppu can mean carp or carp scales, einkorn (wheat) or a kind of apple. (You can see the full entry here, but I couldn't find anything more helpful).
So could the original word refer to an item with scales or thorns? Both of those could apply to the artichoke.
And if that's the case - could this also be the origin of a Hebrew word - kartzef קרצף - "to scrape or scratch"? Klein says that it's related to an Aramaic root with the same spelling, but the ultimate etymology is unknown.
And here's where it gets a little strange. There's a kind of thistle, the "blessed thistle", known in Hebrew as akartzaf mevorach קרצף מבורך. I haven't been able to find out where or how this term entered Hebrew (in fact, it's not in any of my dictionaries). But perhaps this too makes a connection between kartzaf and artichoke?
And one more possible theory. The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the following origin of cardoon:
1610s, from French cardon, from Provençal cardon, properly "thistle," from Late latin cardonem (nominative cardo "thistle," related to Latin carduus "thistle, artichoke"
And then going further back, in the entry for "harsh":
originally of texture, "hairy," 1530s, probably from Middle English harske "rough, coarse, sour" (c. 1300), a northern word of Scandinavian origin (compare Danish and Norwegian harsk "rancid, rank"), related to Middle Low German harsch "rough, raw," German harst "a rake;" perhaps from PIE root *kars- "to scrape, scratch, rub, card" (cognates: Lithuanian karsiu "to comb," Old Church Slavonic krasta, Russian korosta "to itch," Latin carduus "thistle," Sanskrit kasati "rubs, scratches").
So could this Indo-European root, *kars be related to kartzaf, which shares a meaning and a similar sound - and could either or both of them be related to the Arabic and Akkadian words we've found?
I realized that in my recent post on atarandasher, I left out an interesting cognate. I quoted Klein's etymology for the word osher אושר - "happiness":
Perhaps related to Ugaritic ushr (= happiness), Arabic yasara (= was easy), yassara ( =made easy, prospered)
The English word "hazard" may well derive from that same Arabic yasara. How so?
Klein himself does not make the connection. In his Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, he has the following entry for "hazard":
1) a game played with dice; 2) chance; 3) risk. Old French (= French) hasard, from Spanish azar, 'unfortunate throw at dice, unforeseen accident', usually derived from Arabic al-zahr (pronounced az-zahr), 'the die'. This derivation is rightly doubted by most lexicographers (see e.g. Devic's Supplement to Littre's Dictionnaire de la langue francaise, s.v. hasard, and Skeat's Etymological Dictionary, s.v. hazard), owing to the fact that the word zahr does not occur in the dictionaries of Classical Arabic. According to my opinion Spanish azar derives from Arabic yasara, 'he played at dice'; z is the regular Spanish equivalent of Arabic s. The d in Old French hasard (whence English hazard) is due to a confusion of the ending -ar with suffix -ard.
So we see here that the Arabic word yasara can mean both "was easy" (or prospered) and "played at dice." What possible connection could there be between the two?
Yasara: affluence because maisir brings about profit; Yusr: convenience, ease. Maisir is so termed because it is a means of making money without toil and exertion
(For further discussion of the Arabic root, see this post).
So we have an interesting development here. In Arabic, the games of dice and maisir were associated with ease - the element of chance provided an easy way of making money (and the echo of the Hebrew word osher can still be heard). But when the word entered European languages, it took a darker turn. Hazard went from a game of chance, to chance in general, to specifically a chance of harm or risk. I guess it all depends on how the die falls...
The English word "maudlin" ultimately has a Hebrew origin. From The Online Etymology Dictionary's entry for maudlin:
c. 1600, "tearful," from Middle English fem. proper name Maudelen (early 14c.), from Magdalene (Old French Madelaine), woman's name, originally surname of Mary the repentant sinner forgiven by Jesus in Luke vii:37. In paintings, she often was shown weeping as a sign of repentance. Meaning "characterized by tearful sentimentality" is recorded by 1630s
fem. proper name, from Latin (Maria) Magdalena, from Greek Magdalene, literally "woman of Magdala," from Aramaic Maghdela, place on the Sea of Galilee, literally "tower."
Magdala was the name of a number of places in the Second Temple period (mentioned in both Jewish and Christian sources.) Later an Arab village, al-Majdal, preserved the name of Magdala, and in 1910, once again a Jewish town, in the same area, took up the name - Migdal.
The Aramaic Maghdela is cognate with the Hebrew migdal מגדל - "tower", and derives from the root גדל, meaning "great, large, tall", as in the word gadol גדול - "big". There is another meaning of גדל - "twist, plait", and from here we get the synonym for tzitzit - gedilim גדילים in Devarim 22:12. Klein says they might be related, since twisting a cord makes it strong, i.e. great.
A different theory, mentioned in this entry in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, says that the two meanings of גדל are not related, and in fact, suggests that migdal actually derives from degel דגל (originally meaning "to look"):
The natural identification of the word migdal as a miqtal construction from a root gdl is problematical because only Canaanite attests the root gdl in the meaning "be large, high" (cf. in contrast Arab. gadala, "twist or pull tightly, plait"), and because the context of several OT occurences (e..g Isa 5:2) does not suggest something large and high. Thus there is some reason to follow the suggest first articulated by William F. Albright that the word migdal arose through metathesis from midgal (cf. Akk. madgaltu, "watchtower, border post").
The same entry mentions that the word migdal (or migdol) was so frequent in place names in the region, that Herodotus (Histories 2:159) mistakenly describes the famous biblical Battle of Megiddo as taking place in Magdolus. The Christian Book of Revelation describes a future battle to take place at Har Megiddo - which in Greek became Armageddon. Eventually, Armageddon took on the meaning of "a final conflict" or "the end of the world."
Zev Vilnay writes here that the place name Megiddo מגידו likely has the following origin: מגדו — מקום גדודים - "Megido - a place of troops (gedudim)". Others connect it to the word meged מגד - "bounty" (of food).
So from the sad maudlin and the scary Armageddon, if we dig a little further, we find greatness and bounty. The optimism of etymology!
What is the origin of the word apikoros (or apikorus / epikoros ) אפיקורוס, meaning "heretic"? It refers to the Greek philosopher Epicurus, and his school of thought, Epicureanism. While many ideas in Greek philosophy were in conflict with the views of Rabbinic Judaism, the Epicurean ideas, which denied eternity of the soul and the existence of God (or at least gods that were involved with what happens on earth), were particularly abhorrent to the rabbis of the post-Biblical period. So Epicurus for them became a prototype of all heretics and atheists. We find the words epicure and epicurean in English as well, meaning "pleasure loving", and particularly associated with a love of good food. The Online Etymology Dictionary provides the following entry:
late 14c., "follower of Epicurus," from Latinized form of Greek Epicouros (341-270 B.C.E.), Athenian philosopher who taught that pleasure is the highest good and identified virtue as the greatest pleasure; the first lesson recalled, the second forgotten, and the name used pejoratively for "one who gives himself up to sensual pleasure" (1560s), especially "glutton, sybarite" (1774). Epicurus's school was opposed by the stoics, who first gave his name a reproachful sense. Non-pejorative meaning "one who cultivates refined taste in food and drink" is from 1580s.
This is the widely accepted etymology for apikorus (more on the connection to Epicurus in this Philologos column).
The Rambam, however, in his commentary to the Mishna (Sanhedrin 10:1), gives a different etymology. Based on Talmudic sources (such as Sanhedrin 38b), he says it comes from the root פקר, meaning "to abandon" (found in the word hefker הפקר - "abandoned"). He wrote this commentary early in life, and it appears that perhaps that at the time he was not familiar with the Greek philosopher. However, much later in life, when he wrote The Guide for the Perplexed, he mentions Epicurus by name a number of times (1:73, 2:13, 3:17). So one theory is that maybe he would have reconsidered his original etymology after his subsequent exposure to philosophic sources.
However, a connection between apikoros and hefker may likely exist - just in the other direction. The root פקר is not found in Biblical Hebrew, first appearing in Talmudic sources. Scholars have a number of theories as to the origin of this root, and Ben Yehuda writes in his dictionary that it might not be just one source, but rather multiple influences. (For an extensive discussion of the various theories, see this Hebrew article by Prof. Shamma Friedman, with an English summary at the end.)
One theory is that this might be a metathesis of the root פרק, meaning "to break up, divide, tear away" (for example in the word perek פרק, as we discussed here). Klein quotes the phrase "parak ol torah" פרק על תורה - "he threw off the yoke of the Torah" for comparison.
Another possibility is that the earlier form of the word was the similar sounding hevker הבקר, and this is found in a number of locations in the Mishna (e.g. Peah 6:1). The Ramban, in his commentary to Shemot 15:10 and Vayikra 19:20 notes this as well, also saying that the בקר root preceded the פקר one.
Within this approach, there are a number of suggestions to what the word originally meant. According to Tur-Sinai's note in Ben Yehuda's dictionary, hevker is related to bakar בקר - "cattle", and was so called because cattle would graze in abandoned or ownerless land, or as Friedman speculates, this goes back to a general association between cattle and property, as we saw here. Spieser is quoted in Friedman's article as saying that the origin may be an Akkadian root, baqarum, meaning "to restore property to its owner", which eventually extended to the sense of "relinquish property" in general. And Friedman himself points out that the related roots בקר/בקע/פקר/פקע all mean "to burst", which came to indicate transfer of something from one domain to another (Bialik expands on this idea here).
All of these approaches might help explain a word that only appears once in the Tanach - bikoret בִּקֹּרֶת (Vayikra 19:20). Levine, in his JPS commentary on Vayikra, translates the word as "indemnity" and writes that:
It is probably cognate with the Akkadian verb baqaru, "to make good on a claim, to indemnify." Biblical bikkoret is therefore related to mishnaic hevker, "property over which one has relinquished his claim." In our verse, the term bikkoret designates the actual payment imposed on the responsible party.
(For a further discussion of bikoret in that verse, see this post).
A final theory connects hefker to apikoros, claiming that the latter influenced the former - meaning a heretic who abandoned his religion.
At this point I'm not sure what to believe. The various theories are hefker - you can take whatever you like. And luckily you don't need to worry about being called an apikorus if you believe the wrong one...
Originally, the Hebrew rega רגע and Aramaic shaah שעה were synonymous - both meant "instant" or "moment". Rega appears over 20 times in the Tanach with that meaning, and sha'ah is found five times in the Aramaic section of the book of Daniel, as well as in the Aramaic translations of the biblical rega.
The etymology of rega is in dispute. The root רגע has two meanings. The more familiar one means "to be at rest", and is found in such words as ragua רגוע- "relaxed" and margia מרגיע - "calming". A second meaning is "to move, set in motion, disturb" (as in Yeshaya 31:34). Klein presents two possibilities as to the connection between the two meanings. Either they are related, with both sharing a common root meaning "to return" (there is a cognate Arabic word with that sense), so the first meaning literally means "returned to rest after wanderings" and the second meaning focuses on the "movement" found in returning. The second theory, which Klein prefers, says the two roots are not related, and the latter is related to two other Hebrew roots also meaning "to disturb" - רגש and רגז.
Along these lines, Klein mentions two theories of the etymology of rega:
Probably derived from רגע (= to move), and literally meaning 'a twinkling (of the eye)'. For sense development, compare Latin momentum (=movement, motion; short time, moment) from movere (=to move).
Some scholars also derive rega from רגע, but in the sense of Arabic raja'a (=he returned) and compare the phrase qabla 'an yartadda ilayka tarfuka 'in the twinkling of an eye, instantly' (literally: 'before your look returns to you')
This phrase "twinkling (or wink) of the eye" is found in Hebrew as well, also with the meaning "instant": הרף עין heref ayin.
As Hebrew progressed into its post-biblical phase, the original sense of both words was maintained in many usages, but with the growing field of science they each gained an additional meaning: a specific, measured, unit of time. A shaah was one twelfth of the time between sunrise and sunset (or sunset to sunrise), and is close to our modern sense of "hour". A rega was a small fraction of that time - according to the Talmud Yerushalmi (Berachot 1:1) it was either 1/56848 of a shaah (about 0.06 seconds), a heref ayin, the or the amount of time to say the word rega.
(Eliahu Netanel here quotes Rabbi Baruch Epstein in his book Baruch She'amar as saying that the expression "even one shaah" in the blessing "Asher Yatzar" can't be referring to the later meaning, 1/24 of the day, but must be the earlier sense of "instant".)
In the Middle Ages, the word dak דק replaced rega as the unit of time smaller than a shaah, with the meaning of "minute", one-sixtieth of an hour - again due to a need for more precise terms. The Hebrew adjective dak also means "thin, lean, small". Think of the dual meaning of "minute" in English - "small" and "1/60th of an hour". Klein gives the following etymology to dak as a unit of time:
Based on Arabic daqiqah (= minute) and influenced by Medieval Latin minuta, short for Latin pars minuta prima (literally: 'the first small part')
Around the same time, the Hebrew shniah שנייה came to mean the even smaller "second" (as in Latin and English - this is the second division of the hour, after the division into minutes). Rega returned to its earlier sense of "moment" (which, as in English, doesn't refer to a particular amount of time, although like regaonce did), however until recent generations was still occasionally used for "minute" as well. (Ben Yehuda criticized this usage, while others, such as Avineri, supported it, and said rega was even a better term than daka for minute. Ben Yehuda won that battle.)
In modern Hebrew dak was replaced with daka דקה. This article claims that perhaps this was from the influence of the endings of the Arabic daqiqah, Latin minuta, and Hebrew shaah. The same article goes on to say that the male forms of minute - rega and dak - apparently had enough influence on spoken Hebrew that even today the common way of saying the time has the minutes in the masculine form - for example, 5:55 would be spoken חמשה לשש - chamisha l'shesh (five [minutes] to six) instead of חמש לשש chamesh l'shesh (which would be proper if the first number referred to female dakot דקות). Some people find the current usage improper or grating (for example in the book Rega Shel Ivrit) but the article quoted above, by the Hebrew Language Academy, says the practice is so well established that it's not worth fighting.
Shaah still maintains in modern Hebrew its early sense of "instant" particularly in phrases such as otah shaah אותה שעה - "at the same time" (which doesn't mean "within the same hour"). However, in general it refers to our familiar "hour" - sixty minutes.
And continuing this trend of scientific progress, in the modern period a word was needed for the instrument used to measure and display time - the clock. (Already in the Mishna, Kelim 12:4, we find a term for a sundial - אבן שעות even shaot). As was common in the Haskala period of Hebrew (which preceded modern Hebrew), longer compound phrases were used, such as moreh shaot מורה שעות. In 1885, Yechiel Michael Pines (and not Ben-Yehuda as some mistakenly claim) coined the term shaon שעון (following the general trend of preferring shorter, one word neologisms). And despite the opposition of some - either because they preferred to use existing Hebrew words (as mentioned by Klausner), or they thought shaon was too similar to שאון shaon meaning "noise, tumult" (as mentioned by Avineri) - shaon became the modern Hebrew word for "clock". Avshalom Kor has a nice video about the history of the word here - enjoy!
