دلاع

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Arabic

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دَلَّاع

Etymology

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Considered sometimes a Berber borrowing,[1] which would coincide with the spread of the watermelon in the Early Middle Ages from West Africa, however first attested in Imperial Aramaic as a plural 𐡃𐡋𐡏𐡍 (dlʿn, gourds) in the first quarter of the 5th century BCE,[2] and it occurs in Hebrew from the Mishnaic period as דְּלַעַת (dəlaʿáṯ, gourd). The Arabic root د ل ع (d-l-ʕ) related to “sticking out, hanging out” is connected to the word[3] in view of the watermelon’s way of growth. That it is first attested in Aramaic and appears only more than half a millennium later in Hebrew, sometimes with an Aramaizing plural ending, and the measure which the Arabic exposes varies in the first vowel and is in both cases for this semantic field more common in Aramaic than Arabic, points to the word having passed into Arabic from Aramaic.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /dal.laːʕ/, /dul.laːʕ/

Noun

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دَلَّاع or دُلَّاع (dallāʕ or dullāʕm (collective, singulative دَلَّاعَة f (dallāʕa) or دُلَّاعَة (dullāʕa))

  1. watermelon
    Synonyms: بِطِّيخ أَحْمَر (biṭṭīḵ ʔaḥmar), بِطِّيخ هِنْدِيّ (biṭṭīḵ hindiyy), حَبْحَب (ḥabḥab), جَبَس (jabas)

Declension

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Descendants

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  • Algerian Arabic: دلاع (dallāʕ)
  • Libyan Arabic: دلاع (dallāʕ)
  • Maltese: dulliegħ
  • Moroccan Arabic: دلاح (dallāḥ), دلاع (dallāʕ)
  • Tunisian Arabic: دلاع (dillēʕ)
  • Medieval Latin: adulaha

References

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  1. ^ Paris, Harry S. (2015) “Origin and emergence of the sweet dessert watermelon, Citrullus lanatus”, in Annals of Botany[1], number 116, →DOI, page 145; a treatise which has been summarized by Strauss, Mark (2015 August 21) “The 5,000-Year Secret History of the Watermelon”, in National Geographic[2].
  2. ^ On which dlˁt”, in The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1986–.
  3. ^ Already Hiller, Matthæus (1725) Hierophyticon sive Commentarius in loca Scripturae Sacrae quae plantarum faciunt mentionem (in Latin), volume 2, Treves: Jacob Broedelet, page 234.