دخس

Arabic

دُخَس

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دخس

Etymology

Natively explained as from the root ذ خ س (ḏ-ḵ-s), denoting “to be fleshy”, “to be fat or chubby”, “to have blubber”, “to be full or thick”; likely a term originally applied for various marine mammals; considered cognate with Biblical Hebrew תַּחַשׁ (táḥaš), occurring as a source of the covering of the tabernacle and frequently misinterpreted as an animal such as sea cow, dugong, porpoise, also by reason of this Arabic term for explanation. The lexical item is now known to designate kinds of inlays of patterned beading, stones, metal and faience, that for the artificial material were set off blue (hyacinthine on red-dyed skin on the tabernacle), and belong to Akkadian 𒂃𒅆𒀀 (DU₈.ŠI.A /⁠duhšu⁠/) also used as a colour-name, borrowed in both languages via the Mari language or directly from Hurrian. Since there has been no necessity to posit direct Akkadian loans into Arabic, not to speak of Hurrian ones, and the sound change of Hebrew is not copied, this also implies borrowing of an Aramaic *דֻחְשָׁא (duḥəšā) here, before the Northwest Semitic sound merger of /ħ/ into /x/.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /du.xas/

Noun

دُخَس • (duḵas) m

dolphin
whale; dugong

Declension

Declension of noun دُخَس (duḵas)

Singular	basic singular triptote
Singular	Indefinite	Definite	Construct
Informal	دُخَس duḵas	الدُّخَس ad-duḵas	دُخَس duḵas
Nominative	دُخَسٌ duḵasun	الدُّخَسُ ad-duḵasu	دُخَسُ duḵasu
Accusative	دُخَسًا duḵasan	الدُّخَسَ ad-duḵasa	دُخَسَ duḵasa
Genitive	دُخَسٍ duḵasin	الدُّخَسِ ad-duḵasi	دُخَسِ duḵasi

Synonyms

دُلْفِين (dulfīn)
دَرْفِيل (darfīl)

References

Dalley, Stephanie (2000) “Hebrew taḥaš, Akkadian duhšu, faience and beadwork”, in Journal of Semitic Studies‎^[1], volume 45, number 1, →DOI, pages 1–19
Dozy, Reinhart Pieter Anne (1881) “دخس”, in Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes‎^[2] (in French), volume 1, Leiden: E. J. Brill, page 425
Kazimirski, Albin de Biberstein (1860) “دخس”, in Dictionnaire arabe-français contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe, leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc‎^[3] (in French), volume 1, Paris: Maisonneuve et C^ie, page 677b
Sims-Williams, Nicholas (2017) “Two Iranian loanwords in Syriac”, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies‎^[4], volume 80, number 3, →DOI, page 486
Wehr, Hans (1979) “دخس”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN, page 315