# swꜣj
## Egyptian
### Etymology 1

Compare Hebrew שׁור (“to journey”), Arabic سَارَ (sāra, “to depart, travel”).

#### Pronunciation

* (reconstructed) IPA: /ˈsiwʀit/ → /ˈsiwʀiʔ/ → /ˈseʔja/ → /ˈseʔjə/
* (Old Egyptian, c. 2500 BCE) IPA: /ˈsiwʀit/
* (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA: /ˈsiwʀiʔ/
* (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA: /ˈseʔja/
* (latest Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA: /ˈseʔjə/
* (modern Egyptological) IPA: /suːɑi/
** Conventional anglicization: suai

#### Verb

4ae inf.
* (intransitive) to go past, to physically pass (+ ḥr: to pass by (a person, place, or afterworldly being); also, to pass through (a gate), to pass along (a path); + r: to)
** c. 1859 BCE – 1840 BCE, The Story of Sinuhe, version B (pBerlin 3022 and pAmherst n-q) lines 14–15: swꜣ.n.j ḥr jꜣbtjw jkw [m ḥryt] nb[t]-ḏw-(d)š(r)I passed by the east side of the Tura quarry [above] the Lad[y] of the Red Mountain.
* (transitive, uncommon) to go past, to pass by (someone or something)
* (transitive, uncommon) to overtake, to pass (someone moving in the same direction)
* (intransitive, with ḥr) to stop by at, to visit in passing, to drop in on (a tomb, sacrificial altar, statue, or other place to remember the dead)
* (intransitive) to come to an end, to pass
** c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Kagemni (pPrisse/pBN 183) lines 1.6–1.7: ẖz pw ḥnt n ẖt.f swꜣ tr smḫ.n.f wstn ẖt m pr.snHe 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.
** c. 1900 BCE, The Instructions of Kagemni (pPrisse/pBN 183) lines 1.7–1.8: jr ḥms.k ḥnꜥ ꜣfꜥ wnm.k ꜣḫf.f swꜣ(.w)If you sit with a glutton, you should eat when his burning appetite has passed.
* (intransitive, euphemistic) to die, to pass away
* (intransitive, with ḥr) to pass over, to overlook, to take no heed of (people, laws, etc.)
* (intransitive, with ḥr, of information) to escape (one’s) knowledge, to slip past (someone)

##### Alternative forms

| swꜣj | swꜣj | swꜣj | swꜣj | swꜣj |
| [since the Pyramid Texts] | [since the Pyramid Texts] | [since the Pyramid Texts] | [Middle Kingdom] | [Middle Kingdom] |
| swꜣj | swꜣj | swꜣj | swꜣj | swꜣj |
| [Middle Kingdom] | [since the Middle Kingdom] | [since the Middle Kingdom] | [since the Middle Kingdom] | [18th Dynasty] |
| in hieratic | | abbreviation | abbreviation |

### Etymology 2

s- (causative prefix) +‎ wꜣj (“to be far”).

#### Pronunciation

* (modern Egyptological) IPA: /sɛwɑi/
** Conventional anglicization: sewai

#### Verb

caus. 3ae inf.
* (transitive) to keep or drive (someone) away, to remove (someone) (+ m: from (a place)) [since the Pyramid Texts]
* (transitive) to drive away (darkness or night) [Greco-Roman Period]

##### Alternative forms

swꜣj :
[Greco-Roman Period] :

### References

* “swꜣi̯ (lemma ID 129740)” and “swꜣi̯ (lemma ID 129800)”, 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 (1930) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎, volume 4, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 60.5–61.20
* Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 216
* James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 36, 242, 255, 262.
* Hoch, James (1997) Middle Egyptian Grammar, Mississauga: Benben Publications, →ISBN, page 129
* ↑ 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.