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.

2867: Cyprus and Cypress pt. 2 Oct 26, 2024

The Greek word kύπρος (kúpros) is not by itself a confusing term, but it pops up in lots of interesting places. Κύπρος is the Greek name for the island of Cyprus, which is the same name as its had since antiquity. Famous for its being the largest copper producer in the Mediterranean during the Bronze Age, this is the source of the metal’s name in Greek and eventually in English. Of course, it is also the name for the cypress tree, differentiated in spelling in English from the Island for clarity, but pronounced the same. 

Over the years, some have tried to connect the name to different religious practices of the Phoenicians or others, but even if this is true, this is not the source of the name of the island.

2866: Gopher Wood: An Etymological Mystery pt. 1 Oct 25, 2024

There are numerous untranslated—potentially untranslatable—words from Biblical Hebrew, typically in the realm of natural items like plants, animals, and minerals. One such example is גפר, the type of wood used for Noah’s Ark. The sentence structure itself is somewhat notable insofar as עשה לך תבת עצי־גפר (Make for yourself a box of woods/trees of gopher) is plural—atypical for mass nouns— but it is definitely a tree type. 

The main candidate for what this would have been is, in English, the cypress. The name of this tree, specifically the Mediterranean cypress, is traceable to Ancient Greek κύπρος but that itself appears to be of semitic origin, potentially related to the Akkadian kupru, denoting a type of aromatic tree sap, and would be related to the root גפר.

This is part one. There will be more on this root tomorrow.