س ف ن

Arabic

Etymology 1

From سَفِينَة (safīna, “ship”).

Root

س ف ن • (s-f-n)

1. related to ships

Derived terms

• سَفِينَة (safīna, “ship”)
• سِفَانَة (sifāna, “shipbuilding”)
• سَفَّان (saffān, “shipbuilder”)

Etymology 2

Uncertain, potentially borrowed from Middle Persian, compare Persian اپسان (apsân) ~ افسان (afsân) ~ فسان (fasân) prefixed forms of سان (sân, “whetstone”), Arabic سُنْبَاذَج (sunbāḏaj, “whetstone”). Likewise there are native Semitic associations with Akkadian 𒊓𒉺𒉡 (sa-pa-nu /⁠sapānu⁠/, “to level, to even out, to flatten, to smooth out”), Akkadian 𒉌𒌓𒌑𒃻𒋤𒋤 (^NA₄U₂.NIG₂.SU₃.SU₃ /⁠sapīnu⁠/, “smoothing-stone, stone used for flattening”), and Aramaic ספנ (səpan, “to fill in empty spaces, to patch up a hold of a ship; hence to pair wood into usable planks”) connected with ship-building, Imperial Aramaic 𐡎𐡐𐡍𐡀 (sp̄enā, “plank”), and Aramaic סְפינִתָּא (sǝp̄īntā, “ship”).

Root

س ف ن • (s-f-n)

1. related to paring, stripping

Derived terms

• Form I: سَفَنَ (safana, “to pare, to strip off”)
  • Verbal noun: سَفْن (safn)
  • Active participle: سَافِن (sāfin)
  • Passive participle: مَسْفُون (masfūn)
• سَفَن (safan), مِسْفَن (misfan, “adze, paring-knife or other smoothing implement”)

Further reading

• Corriente, Federico, Pereira, Christophe, Vicente, Angeles, editors (2017), Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou. Perspectives phraséologiques et étymologiques (in French), Berlin: De Gruyter, →ISBN, page 641
• Dozy, Reinhart Pieter Anne (1881) “س ف ن”, in Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes‎^[1] (in French), volume 2, Leiden: E. J. Brill, pages 659b–660a
• Fraenkel, Siegmund (1886) Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen (in German), Leiden: E. J. Brill, pages 216–217
• Freytag, Georg (1833) “س ف ن”, in Lexicon arabico-latinum praesertim ex Djeuharii Firuzabadiique et aliorum Arabum operibus adhibitis Golii quoque et aliorum libris confectum‎^[2] (in Latin), volume 2, Halle: C. A. Schwetschke, page 325b
• Garosi, Eugenio (2022 December 1) “Regional Diversity in the Use of Administrative Loanwords in Early Islamic Arabic Documentary Sources (632–800 CE): A Preliminary Survey”, in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean World. From Constantinople to Baghdad, 500-1000 CE, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 419
• Jeffery, Arthur (1938) The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān (Gaekwad’s Oriental Series; 79), Baroda: Oriental Institute, pages 171–172
• Kazimirski, Albin de Biberstein (1860) “س ف ن”, 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, pages 1102–1103
• Lane, Edward William (1863) “س ف ن”, in Arabic-English Lexicon‎^[4], London: Williams & Norgate, page 1375
• Wehr, Hans (1979) “سفن”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN, page 482