Derived words: biṣṣu ‘trickle’ (CAD B 268, 269, AHw. 130, 131, 1548); buṣāṣu ‘trifles’ (CAD B 348, AHw. 883).
Probably related to either Arb. bḍḍ ‘to flow by little and little’ or Arb. baṣṣa l-māˀu = rašaḥa “to leak, to ooze (of water)” (TA 17 491).
Akkadian
baṣīḫu - inhabitants of the marshes
(CAD B 134, AHw. 1547)
The Aramaic etymology proposed in AHw. 1547 seems doubtful, since, as rightly observed in Abraham-Sokoloff 2011:28, the Aramaic lexeme biṣˁā to which von Soden refers does not exist. What he likely means is Rabbinic Hebrew biṣˁā, translated as “ditch, dike, pond” in DTTM 184. The marginal attestation of this word and the semantic difference between it and the Akkadian lexeme in question makes von Soden’s comparison rather unlikely.
Var. bešāmu.
The complete phonological and semantic overlap between the Akkadian word and Tgr. bašəmma ‘rag; penitential garment’ is too striking to be accidental.