i. Etymology

The etymology of abrīšam (also abrīšom with dialectical labialization of a or delabialization of o, and barīšam) is not entirely certain. At present its apparent connection with New Persian reštan/rēs- “to spin” and its derivation from some such form as *upa-raišma- may be maintained. NPers. reštan would traditionally correspond to Old Indic riś-áti “he plucks, tears off.” The Middle Persian has parēšam (H. W. Baily, “Three Pahlavi Notes,” JRAS 1931, p. 425). Abrīšam appears as a loan word from Iranian in Armenian aprišum, aprešum, Syriac/Mandean ʾbryšwm, and Arabic ebrīsam. The NPers. rēšam/rīšam is evidently only a shortened form of abrēšam. In dialects either the Mid. Pers. or the NPers. form, often considerably changed, occurs. Connected with abrīšam and its base are rē/ĕšma “belt;” rīšm(ī), rīšmān(ī) “silken, of silk;” rīsmān “cord, string” (thus not related to NPers. rasan “cord” and Old Indic raśmí-, masc., “cord”); bād-rīs(a) (from pati^o with vr_oiddhi) and ǰaḡ-resta (ǰaḡ “distaff”) “spindle,” etc. In East Iranian in place of abrīšam we have pīl(e), which corresponds to NPers. pīla “silkworm, cocoon.” In dialects one also finds čolla (borrowed in Turkic dialects as čille), from *čullak, arabicized as ṣollaǰ (see W. Eilers, Westiranische Mundarten, Wiesbaden, 1976, I, p. 347; II, p. 650) properly speaking, “very fine cotton.”