دخس

Where it comes from

Natively explained as from the root ذ خ س (ḏ ḵ s), denoting “to be fleshy”, “to be fat or chubby”, “to have blubber”, “to be full or thick”; likely a term originally applied for various marine mammals; considered cognate with Biblical Hebrew תַּחַשׁ (táḥaš), occurring as a source of the covering of the tabernacle and frequently misinterpreted as an animal such as sea cow, dugong, porpoise, also by reason of this Arabic term for explanation. The lexical item is now known to designate kinds of inlays of patterned beading, stones, metal and faience, that for the artificial material were set off blue (hyacinthine on red-dyed skin on the tabernacle), and belong to Akkadian 𒂃𒅆𒀀 (DU₈.ŠI.A /⁠duhšu⁠/) also used as a colour-name, borrowed in both languages via the Mari language or directly from Hurrian. Since there has been no necessity to posit direct Akkadian loans into Arabic, not to speak of Hurrian ones, and the sound change of Hebrew is not copied, this also implies borrowing of an Aramaic *דֻחְשָׁא (duḥəšā) here, before the Northwest Semitic sound merger of /ħ/ into /x/.