2868: Henna & Heresy (Gopher pt. 3) Oct 28, 2024

The mysterious gopher wood may be cypress, related to Cyprus and copper, but it also has another place that it pops up. As with the Hebrew כופר (cofer) the Greek κύπρος (kupros) means ‘henna’ which English got from Arabic, along with ‘tachina’ (a.k.a. tahini) meaning ‘to grind; smear’. While the Greek and Hebrew words—Greek adopted its root from a semitic source—relates to both the plant and the body-paint byproduct, Hebrew כופר also means ‘heretic’*. The sense was extended from smearing to blotting out, and then somewhat metaphorically to blotting out someone’s name. 

The root letters can also mean ‘atonement’ or ‘village’ but all 3 of these roots are not clearly related.