wsṯn

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Egyptian

Pronunciation

 

Verb

wsT
n
D54

 4-lit.

  1. (intransitive) to go freely, to stride unimpeded, unhindered (+ m or ḥr: in (a place))
  2. (intransitive) to freely take a place or seat (+ m: in (a boat))
  3. (intransitive, of limbs) to have freedom of movement, to be able to move freely
  4. (intransitive, figuratively) to make free, to have free rein
    • c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Kagemni (pPrisse/pBN 183) lines 1.6–1.7:
      X
      z
      nDs
      A1
      pWHHnn
      t
      I3A24n
      X
      t Z1
      f
      swAAN31t
      r
      M6ra
      smxD35
      n
      fwst
      n
      D54X
      t Z1
      mprZ1sn
      Z2
      ẖz pw ḥnt n ẖt.f swꜣ tr smḫ.n.f wstn ẖt m pr.sn
      He who is greedy for the sake of his belly when the proper time passes, having forgotten those in whose house his belly roams free, is a wretch.

Inflection

Conjugation of wsṯn (quadriliteral / 4-lit. / 4rad.) — base stem: wsṯn
infinitival forms imperative
infinitive negatival complement complementary infinitive1 singular plural
wsṯn
wsṯnw, wsṯn
wsṯnt
wsṯn
wsṯn
‘pseudoverbal’ forms
stative stem periphrastic imperfective2 periphrastic prospective2
wsṯn
ḥr wsṯn
m wsṯn
r wsṯn
suffix conjugation
aspect / mood active contingent
aspect / mood active
perfect wsṯn.n
consecutive wsṯn.jn
terminative wsṯnt
perfective3 wsṯn
obligative1 wsṯn.ḫr
imperfective wsṯn
prospective3 wsṯnw, wsṯn
potentialis1 wsṯn.kꜣ
subjunctive wsṯn
verbal adjectives
aspect / mood relative (incl. nominal / emphatic) forms participles
active active passive
perfect wsṯn.n
perfective wsṯn
wsṯn
wsṯn, wsṯnw5, wsṯny5
imperfective wsṯn, wsṯny, wsṯnw5
wsṯn, wsṯnj6, wsṯny6
wsṯn, wsṯnw5
prospective wsṯn, wsṯntj7
wsṯnwtj1 4, wsṯntj4, wsṯnt4

1 Used in Old Egyptian; archaic by Middle Egyptian.
2 Used mostly since Middle Egyptian.
3 Archaic or greatly restricted in usage by Middle Egyptian. The perfect has mostly taken over the functions of the perfective, and the subjunctive and periphrastic prospective have mostly replaced the prospective.
4 Declines using third-person suffix pronouns instead of adjectival endings: masculine .f/.fj, feminine .s/.sj, dual .sn/.snj, plural .sn. 5 Only in the masculine singular.
6 Only in the masculine.
7 Only in the feminine.

Alternative forms

Derived terms

Descendants

References

  • wsṯn (lemma ID 50030)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae, Corpus issue 18, Web app version 2.1.5, Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning by order of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils by order of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, 2004–26 July 2023
  • Erman, Adolf, Grapow, Hermann (1926) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, volume 1, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 367.9–368.4
  • Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 69
  • James P Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 156, 250.
  1. ^ The latter part of this sentence is ambiguous and can be interpreted in numerous ways. Both swꜣ tr ((when) the proper time passes) and smḫ.n.f wstn ẖt m pr.sn (he has forgotten/having forgotten…, etc.) may be taken either as adverbial clauses (as rendered here) or main clauses. Furthermore, if wstn is taken as a participle rather than a relative form, the phrase it introduces could mean ‘he whose belly roams free at home’ rather than ‘those in whose house his belly roams free’; in this case the preceding perfect verb form smḫ.n demands a different interpretation. One possible solution is to read it with a counterfactual meaning ‘would that he forgot…’ instead of ‘he has forgotten…’; this is substantially the tack taken in Simpson 2003, The Literature of Ancient Egypt. Such counterfactual uses of the bare perfect are, however, rare. Another solution is that taken in Allen 2015, Middle Egyptian Literature, who reinterprets smḫ.n.f as smḫ nf (those forget…), taking nf as a pronoun referring to the “multitude” mentioned several sentences prior. This proposed antecedent is, however, far enough removed as to make such an interpretation doubtful.