ալնիստ
Armenian
[edit]Etymology
[edit]According to Martirosyan, perhaps from ալք (alkʻ, “a female spirit supposed to settle on young people and suffocate them”) + նիստ (nist, “sitting”). Typologically he compares Latin incubō (“to lie in or on; to sit upon”) vs. incubo (“a spirit supposed to settle on people in their sleep and suffocate them by its weight, incubus”).
Noun
[edit]ալնիստ • (alnist)
- (Hamshen) a kind of drowsiness-somnolence caused by a spirit
Synonyms
[edit]- թմբիր (tʻmbir)
References
[edit]- Sargsyan, Artem et al., editors (2001), “ալնիստ”, in Hayocʻ lezvi barbaṙayin baṙaran [Dialectal Dictionary of the Armenian Language] (in Armenian), volume 1, Yerevan: Hayastan, page 17a
- Martirosyan, Hrach (2010) “nist”, in Etymological Dictionary of the Armenian Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 8), Leiden and Boston: Brill, page 505