# ẖt
## Egyptian
### Etymology

Has been compared with Proto-Central Chadic *ḫway- (“stomach, belly, intestines”), which would imply a tentative Proto-Afroasiatic *ḫVwVy- (“stomach”).

### Pronunciation

* (reconstructed) IPA: /ˈçuːwat/ → /ˈçuːjaʔ/ → /ˈçuːja/ → /ˈçeːjə/
* (Old Egyptian, c. 2500 BCE) IPA: /ˈçuːwat/
* (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA: /ˈçuːjaʔ/
* (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA: /ˈçuːja/
* (latest Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA: /ˈçeːjə/
* (modern Egyptological) IPA: /çɛt/
** Conventional anglicization: khet

### Noun

f
* abdomen, belly
** c. 2000 BCE – 1900 BCE, Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor (pHermitage/pPetersburg 1115) lines 136–138: wn.k(w) r.f dmꜣ.kw ḥr ẖt.j dmj.n.j zꜣtw m bꜣḥ.fAt that I was stretched out on my belly, having touched the ground before him.
* stomach, belly as the place where eaten food goes
* (figuratively) desire for food, hunger, gluttony
** 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.
* trunk, torso
* trunk of the body as the seat of breath, life-force (ka), thoughts, emotions, etc.
* womb
* body, corpse [Late Period and Greco-Roman Period]
* belly or bowels of a ship
* underside of a body part
* section of a building [Late Period]
* individual mass or batch of a substance [Greco-Roman Period]
* The meaning of this term is uncertain. Possibilities include: [22nd Dynasty]
** copy or transcript of a document
** wording of a document

#### Alternative forms

| ẖt | ẖt | ẖt | ẖt |
| | | [since the New Kingdom] | [since the New Kingdom] |

#### Derived terms

* nṯrj-ẖt
* ẖt.f (“evening, p.m.”)
* ẖtj (“string of an amulet”)
* sḫm-ẖt

#### Descendants

* Akhmimic Coptic: ⳉⲉⲓ (xei)
* Bohairic Coptic: ϧⲏⲧ⸗ (xēt⸗)
* Sahidic Coptic: ϩⲏ (hē), ϩⲏⲧ⸗ (hēt⸗)

#### See also

* 𓄡

### Noun

f
* group of people or (especially) gods, body, corporation
* group more generally, e.g. of stars, jackals, etc.
* generation of people

#### Alternative forms

| ẖt | ẖt |

#### Derived terms

* smr-ẖt

### Noun

f
* Alternative form of ḥrst (“carnelian”) [Book of the Dead]

#### Inflection
### References

* “ẖ.t (lemma ID 122080)” and “ẖ.t (lemma ID 122120)”, 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 (1929) Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎, volume 3, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 356.3–358.10, 358.15
* Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962) A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 200
* ↑ Orel, Vladimir E., Stolbova, Olga V. (1995) Hamito-Semitic Etymological Dictionary: Materials for a Reconstruction (Handbuch der Orientalistik; I.18), Leiden, New York, Köln: E.J. Brill
* ↑ Loprieno, Antonio (1995) Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 41
* ↑ 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.