لخم

Where it comes from

Compare Soqotri [script needed] (lʼéḥim, léḥem, “shark”), Harsusi [script needed] (léḫem, “shark”), Mehri [script needed] (laḫáym, “shark”), which suggests a Modern South Arabian borrowing when Arabic expanded to South Arabia. A borrowing thence is anyhow likely in view of crosslinguistic comparison of the name of the shark and the vowel variation. If it is true though that the current English term is identical to and in fact from shark (“rascal; someone sleazy or indolent”) there is a curious parallel in the invariant adjective لَخَمَة (laḵama), لُخَمَة (luḵama), لَخْمَة (laḵma, “indolent, oafish”); this does not exclude MSAL origin since the dictionaries contain other locally borrowed personal epithets, regard بَيْدَخَة (baydaḵa, “plump, chubby”) we refer to in بِطِّيخ (biṭṭīḵ).