صف

Where it comes from

Of the root ص ف ف (ṣ f f). Potentially an Aramaic borrowing, doublet of ضَفَّ (ḍaffa, “to push, to throng, to jam, to collect together”), the cognate of which is attested in the passive participle as Jewish Babylonian Aramaic צְפִיפ (ṣəp̄īp̄, “crowded, pushed into”), while the noun is also found as Jewish Babylonian Aramaic צַפָּא (ṣappā, “row”), a relative of which would be Jewish Palestinian Aramaic צפד (ṣfd, “to weave”), as this meaning is present in Arabic in an extended root Arabic ضَفَرَ (ḍafara, “to weave, to plait”), though the example of عَصًا (ʕaṣan) shows that rarely Proto-Semitic *ṣ́ inherited as Arabic ص (ṣ) is possible. Compare the suspicious term صَفَد (ṣafad, “fetter, shackle”), as well as رَفّ (raff, “shelf, a part of furniture where one rows things into”), and صُفَّة (ṣuffa, “bench”) is also a borrowing and possibly related to the root.