The origin of Ugr and Hbr verbs is disputed, v. Kreuzer 1985:39‒41 and Tropper 1990:73‒74 for the history of research. Possible etymologies:
- verbs are to be parsed as Št stem forms of the root ḥwy ‘to curl, to coil,’ unattested in Canaanite but present in Arabic (
ḥwy (V) ‘to assume a round or circular form, to coil, to gather itself together (a snake)’). (HALOT 295)
- from
ḥwy ‘to live’, proposed in Segert 1984:185 (“to ask life for oneself”) and Kreuzer 1985:54‒60 (“hoch leben lassen; huldigen, anbeten”)
- Arb.
ˀistaḥyā ‘to be ashamed, to be shy of somebody’, the semantic relationship between “to be ashamed” and “to humiliate oneself” being
well conceivable
(Kogan 2015: 295)