نشم

Where it comes from

Unknown.

An equation with Proto-Indo-European *h₁élem or terms reconstructed for it, Old Armenian թեղի (tʻełi), Ancient Greek πτελέα (pteléa), all meaning “elm”, is possible, per a communication of Lameen Souag.

Federico Corriente’s Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou reckons it possible to equate the Arabic dendronym, which in the Middle Ages encompassed نَشَم أَسْوَد (našam ʔaswad, “elm”, literally “black elm”) and نَشَم أَبْيَض (našam ʔabyaḍ, “nettle tree”, literally “white elm”) (else called قَيْقَب (qayqab) and مَيْس (mays)), with Egyptian nšmt meaning types of “feldspar”, a variety of minerals widely occurring in the earth and employed to carve items, sharing thus properties and functions of the woods of the trees, a particular colour of which or the multifarity of colours of which would have stood model for Hebrew תִּנְשֶׁמֶת (tinšémeṯ, “chameleon”), elsewhere לֶשֶׁם (léšem, “probably amazonite”).