על משמעי אנ"ס בארמית ובעברית

Aramaic and Hebrew dictionaries define אנס as 'compel' and assert that this meaning came into Hebrew via Aramaic. This study argues for a more complicated relationship between Hebrew and Aramaic regarding this root. Although אנס is indeed Aramaic in origin, in old Aramaic its variant הנס is rather 'to seize', 'to cause unjustice'. Over the course of time, the use of אנס was replaced by other verbs (mainly אלץ) in Aramaic, while Hebrew adopted and broadened its range of meanings ('stop', 'rape'). Finally, the meaning of 'being compelled', common in Babylonian Aramaic, may also have been borrowed from Hebrew, since although almost unattested in other Aramaic dialects, in Hebrew it is used regularly already in tannaitic literature, and possibly in some Hebrew documents from Qumran.