جقر

North Levantine Arabic

Etymology 1

Originally زَقَر (zaʔar), and borrowed in that form from Aramaic סקר (săqar, to stare, to stare with envy, malice), which has seen variants with initial ז (z).[1] However, knowledge of the Aramaic verb's initial radical is not required in order to assert that جقر (jaʔar, jaqar) is a development of زَقَر (zaʔar, zaqar) and not the other way around, as Arabic historically forbade the radicals ج (j < *g) and ق (q) from co-occurring in a root. This constraint was presumably productive until after ج (*g) had begun to palatalize in Arabic, so only recently could a term like جقر (jaʔar, jaqar) have been incorporated into an Arabic variety's vocabulary.

The shift of زقر (zaʔar, zaqar) to جقر (jaʔar, jaqar) is unusual because none of ق (q)'s features would seem to condition a shift ز (z) > ج (j) and because the former is a fricative while the latter was historically affricate, but the shift is nevertheless corroborated by جَعَق (jaʕaʔ, to scream, to shout) and possibly عجق (ʕajaʔ, to clutter, overwhelm) and باجوق (bājūʔ, mouth, loud voice, loud noise).

Pronunciation

Verb

جقر • (jaʔar) I (non-past يجقر (yijʔur))

  1. to glower at, to stare down
Alternative forms
Derived terms

Etymology 2

Likely derived from the above.

Pronunciation

Adjective

جقر • (jiʔir) (feminine جقرة (jiʔra, jiʔre), common plural جقرين (jiʔrīn))

  1. abrasive, annoying, aggressive (of a human)
    Synonyms: جِفِص (jifiṣ), سئيل (saʔīl)

References

  1. ^ sqr”, in The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1986–