Dictionary Finds: فَوَّزَ

إنْجاز

root: ن-ج-ز / form IV verbal noun / definition: milestone

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Have I really written five hundred posts on this blog? It seems so. I would reflect more deeply on this milestone, but there’s an open suitcase on the living room floor with a four-month supply of my various vitamins, four pairs of shoes, enough socks for probably four years—yet only a four-day supply of outfits.

My mind is flicking through my digitalised wardrobe on Indyx as we speak, reminding myself of all that I still need to pack.

I have to tell myself that now is probably not the best time to start researching new languages. (So, Tigrinya and Igbo are currently on pause.)

For now, we’re going back to the dictionary for the second week in a row, following last week’s root exploration.

On page 857 of the Hans Wehr dictionary, we come across the hollow root ف-و-ز. Its form II verb caught my eye:

The form I verb فازَ / يَفوزُ is all about success and winning. So what does that have to do with the form II verb, فَوَّزَ / يُفَوِّزُ, meaning “to cross or travel in the desert“?

The only other reference to the desert under this root is with the place noun مَفازة, which the Hans Wehr defines as “desert”. Knowing that this is a place noun, and knowing the general meaning of the root, we understand that مفازة literally means “place of success”.

Interesting. What’s the link between the desert and success?

Let’s dig deeper.

If we now go to the root ف-و-ز in Lane’s Lexicon, we see مَفازة additionally defined as “a place of safety, security, or escape”, “a cause, or means” of success, or “a place of destruction”.

Huh. That last one is interesting.

It also mentions that مَفازة can refer to the temporary state of safety between this life and the afterlife.

In the midst of all these definitions, the Lexicon refers us back to the verbs from the root. We find that the form II فَوَّزَ / يُفَوِّزُ doesn’t just mean “to travel through a desert” but also “to die”.

(Is the desert, مفازة, a place of both success and death then?)

Okay, so we’ve got ف-و-ز being linked to success and safety and, following on from that, the “temporary safety” after death and before the next life. So maybe this is how death and destruction are linked to the idea of success…

Well, there’s one more thing: the Lexicon notes that the desert may have been referred to as مفازة, a place of safety and success, because people were basically trying to speak those things into existence.

They named the desert as such in order to invite good fortune and, hopefully, find safety and success in that scorching, waterless expanse.

So maybe the hard-to-connect definitions of مفازة represent that stark line between hope and reality.

Maybe my mind is still on my open suitcase. And maybe I’m overwhelmed by definitions.

It’s all up for interpretation. Let me know what you think.

.في أمان الله

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