one derivative of פרכס reference may here be made. אפרכסת is 'the grinder', i. e. the hopper in the mill, and were it not for the tenacious prejudice in favor of foreign etymologies, no scholar would ever have thought of resorting for the original of ăfarkheseth to πρόχοος or ἅρπαξ, neither of which has any connection with the grinding process.[1]
For words with suffixed ז the reader is referred to אטליז and קטלוזא as specimens.
Enlargements by suffixed ד have been recognized in פוקד and אפרקיד. More frequent is the formation by prefixed ד־, originally the demonstrative or relative pronoun. In the Dictionary these forms are designated as Difel, Dispeel, or Dithpeel nouns. The well-known דביתא in the form of דביתהו ד־ for 'the wife of' furnishes the key for the explanation of words like דמחמרא, דימחמרא (Targum Isaiah XXIII, 13; XXX, 2, for Hebrew מפלה); דאיסקרתא, contracted דיסקרתא, an enlargement of קרתא, 'private town, settlement'; דישתקא and דיסתקא, a denominative of שקא, 'handle of an axe' (Syr. אסתקא and דסתקא); דיסתודר (Sabb. 48a), 'shreds of a turban' (Ms. M. סודר), and many more.
ל as a formative suffix appears in classical Hebrew, as כרמל, חרגל &c. (See Gesenius Thesaurus sub littera ל.) Of Talmudic Hebrew there may be mentioned here אַרְבֵּל, עַרְבֵּל (from ארב, ערב, to knit, interlace), meaning sieve, from which the verb אִרְבֵּל (רבל), to sift. Correspondingly the Aramaic ארבלא, ערבלא, is sieve, the verb ארבל, to sift, shake, ערבל, to confound (compare the metaphor in Amos IX, 9), and ערבלאין, mixed multitude.
It would have been superfluous to refer here to that well-known enlargement of stems by suffixed ל were it not that even for so common a utensil as a sieve foreign languages have been ransacked, and arb'la or ʿarb'la has been found in the Latin cribellum. The enlarged stem ארבל finds a further extension in סרבל, for which verb and its derivatives the reader is referred to the Dictionary itself.
Reduplications of entire stems or of two letters of triliteral stems are well known. But there appear also reduplications of one letter employed for enlargement. גוגלתא=גלגלתא, דידבא=דבדבא, לשישית=לשלשת, which may be explained as contractions, find a counterpart in דשתנא, thresher or grist-maker, which is a reduplication of דוש or דשש.
These reduplications are especially remarkable for the transpositions of the radicals with which they are frequently connected. The stem געגע appears as a reduplication of געה, געא, in the sense of lowing, roaring, and figuratively of longing for and howling against. But it also occurs as a transposition of עגעג, a reduplication of עוג, with the meaning of rolling around, מלמל, from מלל, interchanges with למלם,
- ↑ This אפרכסת has nothing in common with ארפכס (ἅρπαξ=ὑδράρπαξ, ἁρπάγιον), 'the waterclock', which appears in Gen. R. s. 4. In Kelim XIV, 6, and XXX, 4, where a metal harpax and a glass harpax are respectively mentioned, the Arukh has preserved the correct reading ארפכס, where the editions have אפרכס. The latter reading has mislead the commentators into identifying the word with אפרכסת, and it forced Maimonides, who realized the difficulty of a 'glass hopper', to assume the meaning of a hopper-shaped vessel, a funnel.
