# wsṯn
## Egyptian
### Pronunciation

* (reconstructed) IPA: /ˈwascan/ → /ˈwastan/ → /ˈwastən/ → /ˈwastən/
* (Old Egyptian, c. 2500 BCE) IPA: /ˈwascan/
* (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA: /ˈwastan/
* (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA: /ˈwastən/
* (latest Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA: /ˈwastən/
* (modern Egyptological) IPA: /wɛst͡ʃɛn/
** Conventional anglicization: westjen

### Verb

4-lit.
* (intransitive) to go freely, to stride unimpeded, unhindered (+ m or ḥr: in (a place)) [since the Middle Kingdom]
* (intransitive) to freely take a place or seat (+ m: in (a boat))
* (intransitive, of limbs) to have freedom of movement, to be able to move freely
* (intransitive, figuratively) to make free, to have free rein
** 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.

#### Alternative forms

| wstn | wstn | wsṯn | wstn | wstnw | wsdnw | wstnw |
| [since the Middle Kingdom] | [since the Middle Kingdom] | [New Kingdom] | [New Kingdom] | [19th Dynasty] | [Greco-Roman Period] | [Greco-Roman Period] |

#### Derived terms

* m wsṯn

#### Descendants

* Demotic: wstn
** Bohairic Coptic: ⲟⲩⲟⲥⲑⲉⲛ (ouosthen)
** Fayyumic Coptic: ⲟⲩⲟⲥⲧⲉⲛ (ouosten)
** Sahidic Coptic: ⲟⲩⲟⲥⲧⲛ (ouostn)

### References

* “wsṯn (lemma ID 50030)”, 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 (1926) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎, volume 1, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 367.9–368.4
* Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 69
* James P[eter] Allen (2010) Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of Hieroglyphs, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, pages 156, 250.
* ↑ 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.