An origin in a form such as Proto-Afroasiatic*maʔ- has been suggested, but as with other attempts at reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic, academic consensus is lacking; compare Proto-Semitic*māy-. The word is a frozen plural, with an original root *m or *mj, the latter of which is supported by the phonetic use of the hieroglyph to write nmjw(“dwarf”).
wrḏ ꜥwt m ws(j)r nj wrḏ zpwj snwj nj ḥwꜣ.sn ꜣd.sn nj [bn.sn nj][3] jr mw ḏw
The limbs in Osiris are weary, but won’t be weary, won’t be weary, they won’t putrefy or decay, [they] won’t [swell up, won’t] make foul fluid(literally, “evil water”).
sṯzt nnw n(j) wrd(w)-jb ḫnpt mw.f jrt jwꜥw šdt nḫn m wꜥꜥw nj rḫ bw.f jm bst sw ꜥ.f nḫtw m ẖnw wsḫt gbb
who raised the limpness of the weary-hearted, who took in his water (semen), who made an heir, who suckled the child in solitude where his location was unknown, who introduced him when his arm grew strong into the hall of Geb.
“mw (lemma ID 69000)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae[1], Corpus issue 17, Web app version 2.01 edition, Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning by order of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils by order of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, 2004–15 December 2022