لخم

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).

• IPA^(key): /luxm/, /lu.xam/, /la.xam/

لُخْم or لُخَم or لَخَم or لَخْم • (luḵm or luḵam or laḵam or laḵm) m (plural أَلْخَام (ʔalḵām))

1. shark

   Synonyms: كَوْسَج (kawsaj), قِرْش (qirš)

   • 1355, اِبْن بَطُّوطَة [ibn baṭṭūṭa, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa], edited by Charles Defrémery & Beniamino Sanguinetti, تُحْفَةُ ٱلنُّظَّارِ فِي غَرَائِبِ ٱلْأَمْصَارِ وَعَجَائِبِ ٱلْأَسْفَارِ [tuḥfatu n-nuẓẓāri fī ḡarāʔibi l-ʔamṣāri waʕajāʔibi l-ʔasfāri]‎^[1], volume II, Paris: L'imprimerie impériale/nationale, published 1854, page 214 line 9:

• Freytag, Georg (1837), “لخم”, in Lexicon arabico-latinum praesertim ex Djeuharii Firuzabadiique et aliorum Arabum operibus adhibitis Golii quoque et aliorum libris confectum‎^[2] (in Latin), volume 4, Halle: C. A. Schwetschke, pages 95b–96a
• Jayakar, Atmaram Sadashiv (1904), “The Shahee dialect of Arabic”, in The Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society‎^[3], volume 21, page 268, adds a dialect’s plurals لُخُوم (luḵūm), لُخَام (luḵām, “sharks”)
• Kazimirski, Albin de Biberstein (1860), “لخم”, in Dictionnaire arabe-français contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe, leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc‎^[4] (in French), volume 2, Paris: Maisonneuve et C^ie, page 981a
• Landberg, Carlo, editor (1942), Glossaire daṯînois‎^[5] (in French), Leiden: Brill, page 2625
• Steingass, Francis Joseph (1884), “لخم”, in The Student's Arabic–English Dictionary‎^[6], London: W.H. Allen, page 914a
• Ullmann, Manfred (1959–1970), Wörterbuch der klassischen arabischen Sprache. Band I (in German), Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, pages 430–431, only attest the shark term, by which reason we omit the base verb “to strike” carried by the dictionaries
• Wehr, Hans (1979), “لخم”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN, page 1012
• Wehr, Hans with Kropfitsch, Lorenz (2020), “لخم”, in Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart (in German), 6th edition, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, →ISBN, page 828, for this root only have supposedly Egyptian لَخْمَة (laḵma, “indolent, oafish”), even less than the previous editions, removing its classical vocalizations in previous editions that appear copied from traditional dictionaries

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key): /la.xam/, [ˈla.xam]

• Audio (al-Lidd):

  (file)

لخم • (laḵam) I (present بلخم (bilḵim), passive participle ملخوم (malḵūm))

1. to startle, to fluster, to dumbfound

   Synonyms: نقّز (naʔʔaz), فاجأ (fājaʔ)

   لخمتوني لمّا ناديتوني هيك.

   laḵamtūni lamma nādētūni hēk

   You flustered me when you called me over like that.