وقت

Where it comes from

Possibly, via dissimilation of emphatic consonants, from the root و ق ط (w q ṭ), akin to rare Classical Arabic وَقْط (waqṭ) & وَقِيطَة (waqīṭa) “hollow in a rock or mountain where rainwater collects”, dialectal Yemeni Arabic وَقَّطَ (waqqaṭa) “to cut down, break off stones”, Minaean 𐩥𐩤𐩷 (wqṭ, “cavity”), Sabaean 𐩥𐩤𐩷 (wqṭ), 𐩺𐩤𐩷 (yqṭ, “to dig up, excavate; to hollow out”), Dadanitic 𐪅𐪄𐪗 (wqṭ, “to inscribe, write”); all of these ultimately from the same biliteral Proto-Semitic root *q-ṭ emblematically represented by Arabic قَطَّ (qaṭṭa) “to cut, to carve”. The “time” sense would develop from a more original meaning of “hollow”, then “gap”, interpreted figuratively as “period or gap of time”—cf. وَقْت (waqt) in the rarely attested sense of “A space, or measure, of local extension”, perhaps a remnant of the would-be original non-temporal meaning. There also exist اِقْتَتَّ (iqtatta, “to dissect”), قَتَّ (qatta, “to reduce, to cut lengthwise”) and all derivatives of the root ق ت ت (q t t) seems to be from the meaning to cut, suggesting this origin.

Alternatively, suggested to be borrowed from Iranian, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *bʰaktás (“distributed, allotted; lot, share”), although this etymology has some difficulties on phonological, semantic, and geographical grounds. If correct, that makes it a doublet of بَخْت (baḵt, “luck”) which was borrowed later. Compare other supposedly borrowed time terms: زَمَن (zaman), سَاعَة (sāʕa), عَام (ʕām), سَوْفَ (sawfa), أَوَان (ʔawān), إِبَّان (ʔibbān).

Where it comes from

Denominal verb from وَقْت (waqt).