כרפס

Forms

כַּרְפַּס (karpas) noun, masculine^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Sanskrit कर्पास (karpāsa, “cotton”), the name of an Indian product: Noonan finds it likely that Hebrew took it directly from Indic, as did the Greek word, since the cotton plant is native to India and the Achaemenid Empire reached that far.^[3][4] Wiktionary has it come through Early Middle Persian.^[5] Its four consonants and the lack of a Semitic etymology mark it as a foreign word.^[3] Others assume an Old Iranian intermediary, and the older dictionaries compare Persian كَرْپَاس (karpās, “fine linen”),^[2][6][7] but Noonan points out that the word appears in Iranian only much later.^[3]

The same Indic word was borrowed as Ancient Greek κάρπασος (kárpasos, “fine flax; cotton”), whence Latin carbasus, and is found in Talmudic Aramaic כַּרְפְּסָא (karpəsā) and Arabic كِرْبَاس (kirbās).^[4][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its only biblical use is in the description of the Persian king's palace in Susa: ḥûr karpas ûṯəḵēleṯ “white cotton and violet hangings” (Esther 1:6).^[1][2] HALOT notes that the fabric is described at the Persian court and not attested for Israel.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek καρπάσινος (karpásinos) “of fine flax”, the Vulgate carbasinus “of cotton”, and Aquila explains it by the Greek adjective too.^[3][2][4] The Rabbinic commentary on Esther glosses it in the same way.^[8] The Greek word means fine flax in the classical writers and cotton in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, which says the product comes from India.^[9][3]

Timeline

• Late Biblical Hebrew – the only use, in Esther 1:6.^[1][4]
• 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint renders it Ancient Greek καρπάσινος (karpásinos).^[10][3]

Meanings

Noun

1. fine white cotton or linen fabric, used for hangings.^[4][2][3]

Usage notes

Rabbinic Hebrew has a second כַּרְפַּס, an umbelliferous plant, celery or parsley (Mishnah Sheviit 9:1), which Klein takes with Aramaic and Syriac from a Persian word; it is not the same word as the fabric.^[11][7][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
2. ^ a b c d e f Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. כַּרְפַּס
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Noonan, Benjamin J. (2019), Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible: A Lexicon of Language Contact, University Park: Eisenbrauns (Linguistic Studies in Ancient West Semitic 14), p. 134
4. ^ a b c d e f Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. כַּרְפַּס
5. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
6. ^ Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. כַּרְפַּס
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. כַּרְפַּס
8. ^ Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. כַּרְפַּס I
9. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. κάρπασος
10. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
11. ^ Jastrow, Marcus (1886–1903), A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London: Luzac; New York: Putnam, p. s.v. כַּרְפַּס II