pušūri(ya)- (pašūri(ya)-)

The attestations occur in two parallel passages of the same birth ritual (MS).

[E.R.]

Checked against the photographs in the Mainzer Fotoarchiv. – The spelling with -ú- before -r- (instead of expected -u- for /o/) is noteworthy in that it indicates that the vowel probably goes back to syncopated -war-.

[E.R.]

The second of the relevant passages runs as follows: ^(15’)[a]n-ni-iš-ku-wa-ti pár-na-an-za ma-ad-du-ú[-wa-ti] ^(16’)[p]a-ap-pár-ku-wa-at-ti ta-a-ti-iš-pa-wa-ti-ia[-ta] ^(17’)x-ti-ia-ti pu-šu-ri-ia[-ti] ^(18’)[pa-]ap-pa-ša-at-ti “the mother cleanses the house with honey, but the father pappaša-s it with an x-tiyati pušuriyati” (KUB 35.103 ii 15’-18’; modified from Melchert 2007b:1f.). No translation is offered in DLL:81 and HHw:173. With due caution, Melchert 2007b considers ‘dust’ for pušuri(ya)- in CLL:172 (because the “[o]bject is sprinkled”, see also Melchert 2007b:1f.), whereas, for the same reason, he thinks of a liquid in DCL:s.v. However, on account of the parallelism between the actions of the mother and the father (conjunction -pa), it is obvious that the pa/ušūri(ya)- must be a substance for cleansing the house, like honey or urine ibid. ii 8’. Melchert 2007b does not repeat his idea to connect the word to the root *pes- ‘to rub’, either. Nevertheless, this is attractive in view of the cleansing activities and the mention of the ḫatayann(i)- ‘drying personnel, drier, wiper (?)’ in the following sentence. Moreover, this permits a more attractive analysis for the verb pappaša-, analyzed by Melchert 2007b as the cognate of Hitt. papparš-^(mi) ‘to sprinkle’. Instead, it may be interpreted as a reduplicated verb derived from the root paš- ‘to rub, wipe, polish’, which yields a figura etymologica ‘to rub with a rubbing substance, to polish with polish’. Accordingly, the meaning ‘rubbing substance, polish’ is suggested, here.

Furthermore, one may wonder whether Hitt. pušpuši- ‘?’ (for attestations, see CHD P:400), which co-occurs with waršulaš ‘odor’ and warš-^(mi) ‘to wipe’, is related to the present lemma.

[E.R.]

With the root identified (see under Meaning), the stem formation of the lexeme becomes transparent: root paš-/puš- (for /ps-/) plus syncopated abstract suffix -ūr- < -war- plus relational suffix -i(ya)-.

[E.R.]

For the etymology, see CLuw. pašiḫā(i)-^(di).