سير

Where it comes from

The “strap” sense is apparently a Middle Iranian borrowing, compare Classical Persian سیرم (sīram, sīrum, “raw deer-skins cut into thongs, used in sewing saddles; strap; the shoemaker's strap which binds the last to his knee; a hawk's leash”), سیرمان (sīrmān, “ruby; embroidered silk”). Compare a whole set of horse tack terminology clearly to potentially borrowed from Iranian at the same time: رَسَن (rasan), رَخْت (raḵt), جُلّ (jull), جُوَالَق (juwālaq), نَمَط (namaṭ), بَرْذَعَة (barḏaʕa), شِكَال (šikāl), لِجَام (lijām), شَكِيمَة (šakīma), إِبْزِيم (ʔibzīm), سَرْج (sarj), خُرْج (ḵurj) and كُرْز (kurz).

The immediate source of the Arabic term, as also of Coptic ⲥⲓⲣ (sir, “line, stripe”) if distinct from ⲥⲓⲣ (sir, “hair of an animal or woman”) inherited from Egyptian s-r:D3 (sr, “hair of an animal or woman”), is likely the widely used Aramaic סירא / ܣܝܪܐ (sīrā, “a woven thread or mesh; chain; cord, rope; thong, shoe-lace”). This term is commonly explained as a borrowing from Ancient Greek σειρᾱ́ (seirā́, “cord, rope”), although it could also be interpreted as clipped from סֵירוּג (sērūg), סֵרוּג (sērūg, “plaiting, strapping”) or a similar term of the same root as the source of سَرْج (sarj), which is itself however connected to Iranian. It also appears as the source of صِير (ṣīr, “a kind of small fish used in brine for a spicy paste”).

This could mean that all or most of the root س ي ر (s y r) related to guidance is derived from this borrowing, as transferred senses of straps by which horses are guided. Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou suggests that even صَارَ (ṣāra) and the whole ص ي ر (ṣ y r), sometimes a variant of سَارَ (sāra, “to go, to travel”), is from this noun by differentiation. Aramaic and Hebrew סָר (sār, “to turn aside, to turn back”) which reach as far back as Imperial Aramaic and the Torah, with frequent occurrence, may indicate a Semitic basis however.