# parting, part (in hair) - etymology



## Encolpius

Good morning ladies & gentlemen, it is very easy to find in dictionaries how *parting *(UK English) or *part *(North American English) is translated into other languages but I am mostly interested what it means exactly, the origin of the word. So what do you call parting (*a line on a person’s head where the hair is divided with a comb*) in your language and what is the origin of the word??? Thank you in advance & have a nice day.  Enco. 

*Hungarian *- választék [from the verb választ - to divide, to separate]


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## jazyk

In Portuguese, *risca*, which also means stripe, comes from the verb riscar, to scratch, from Latin reseco, resecare, to cut back, to trim.


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## Olaszinhok

In Italian , *riga* (stripe) or *scriminatura* (from Latin (_di)scrimen_) - parting - clear separation- distinction


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## Circunflejo

Spanish: raya (from Latin Radius).


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## Welsh_Sion

*Welsh

rhesen (n.f.) (wen) * - a (white) small row (from *rhes (n.f.) *'a row')
*gwneud (vn) rhesen (wen) yn y gwallt *- to make/making a small (white) row in the hair


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## ThomasK

Dutch: *scheiding *based on _*scheiden*_, separate...


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## apmoy70

Greek:

*«Χωρίστρα»* [xɔˈɾi.stra] (fem.).
From the verb *«χωρίζω»* [xɔˈɾi.zɔ] --> _to divide, separate, split up, (between people) break up_ < Classical v. *«χωρίζω» kʰōrízō* + ΜοGr suffix *«-τρα»* [-tra] added to verbs to create feminine nouns (from PIE *-dʰlom, _forms nouns denoting a tool or instrument_ cf Lat. -trum, Proto-Germanic *-þrą).


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## Awwal12

Russian - пробор (probór), ~~"a takethrough" (obviously from пробирать probirát', perf. пробрать probrát', literally "to take through"). Sadly, I have pretty vague ideas on how exactly it was formed.


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## Ghabi

Cantonese: gaai3 界 "border; boundary"


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## Encolpius

Welsh_Sion said:


> *Welsh
> rhesen (n.f.) (wen) * - a (white) small row (from *rhes (n.f.) *'a row')
> *gwneud (vn) rhesen (wen) yn y gwallt *- to make/making a small (white) row in the hair


Hello, I know nothing about Welsh so I do not understand some details, so rhes is a row and rhesen is a white small row....I have no idea what you mean.   My English is not as good as to understand why it is a row.  And what do you mean by "wen", what does it means? Thanks.


Awwal12 said:


> Russian - пробор (probór), ~~"a takethrough" (obviously from пробирать probirát', perf. пробрать probrát', literally "to take through").
> *Sadly, I have pretty vague ideas on how exactly it was formed.
> *


Hello, what do you mean? Where is the mystery?


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## Welsh_Sion

Apologies if not clear.

*rhes* (n.f.) - a row /rəʊ/ (is that 'egy sor' in Hungarian? My apologies, I used Google Translate)
*-en* a diminutive fem. ending
*gwen* (adj. fem.) 'white' (Equivalent of French, 'blanche'). Adjs. usually come after the noun in Welsh. When they do, fem. sing. ones can change their form. So * gwen * becomes *wen*

So ..

*rhesen wen*
row DIM white

Does that make it clearer?


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## Awwal12

Encolpius said:


> Hello, what do you mean? Where is the mystery?


Well, the trouble is I have little idea about the exact meaning of the verb in that particular context (doing/combing hair, i.e.).


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## Welsh_Sion

@Awwal12

Is the idea that you are almost 'ploughing a furrow' through your hair and that the earth is coming out on both sides of the plough, as the hair is being separated on both sides of your comb as you pass the comb through your hair leaving 'a white track' (or as we say in Welsh, 'a white row' - see my explanation above to @Encolpius)?

Just an idea.


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## Awwal12

It can be anything. The concept of "taking" can be applied very broadly, and "pro-" is polysemantic to begin with. I was unable to find anything of relevance on "пробирать" in the dialectological dictionary, that's for sure. P.S.: Nothing in the dictionary of Old and Early Modern Russian (11th - 17th centuries) either.


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## Encolpius

Hello Welsh Sion, now I understand a lot more but now I do not know how you say parting in Welsh.  
So parting is:  
1/rhesen
2/ rhen wen
so you need the word white?

Rhes, rhesen surprised me because I can imagine row as things among nothing, while "pating" is nothing among something (hair), right?


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## Welsh_Sion

Oh dear, it seems I don't explain very well. 

The word for 'white' (here, *wen*) is optional, you don't have to use it. That's why I put it in brackets as *(wen)* in post #5. So you can say,

*Both* of these are possible for the noun 'a parting' in Welsh

*rhesen*
row DIMINUTIVE

*rhesen wen*
row DIMINUTIVE white (fem.)

I probably gave you a wrong translation of 'a row' in Hungarian. My bad for relying on Google Translate. (I don't normally, but I think I know as much Hungarian as you know Welsh. That's my excuse!) Think of 'a path' or 'a track' in the hair which is created when a parting is made. (That's how I tried to explain my idea to @Awwal12 .)


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## Encolpius

I think now I understand everything.  
Thanks
rhesen would be "sorocska" in Hungarian 
Can rhesen mean anything else in Welsh? Maybe a small footpath or only parting?


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## djara

In Arabic, it is farq فرق meaning separation


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## Welsh_Sion

@Encolpius @ 8.01 pm.

Please follow this link and look for rhes1. This gives the English equivalents.

Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru


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## Encolpius

Yes, for rhes but not for rhesen, please take into consideration I do not know Welsh syntax, so I do not know if a diminutive of a word has the same meaning or changing like it can happen in Romance or Slavic languages. What's more the dictionary says rhes can also mean hair-parting, not only rhesen. I am confused.


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## Welsh_Sion

*rhes* is the basic term mean 'a row' (which can also mean 'a hair parting'* rhes 1.c.*)
*rhesen* is like 'a little row' (because the suffix *-en* is a diminutive ending - it makes the noun smaller. If there was an English word, you could use *'rowette', perhaps!). Because it is small in size, this 'row' can also be interpreted as 'a hair parting')

The optional adjective, *wen*, refers to the *'rowette' as being 'white in colour' - i.e. the track/trail/path left by the comb in the hair, on either side of that comb.


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## Encolpius

Welsh_Sion said:


> *rhes* is the basic term mean 'a row' (which can also mean 'a hair parting'* rhes 1.c.*)



Thanks. That confused me. You had mentioned only rhesen, right? Rhesen makes logic, hair-parting is something small. So you use both rhes and rhesen, right? Which one is most common?


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## Welsh_Sion

Initially, I put only *rhesen* because that would be my term.  *Rhesen  wen* (with the accompanying adjective to the diminutive noun) is also possible, The dictionary I cited prefers *rhes *(the non-diminutive form) for 'hair-parting'. we can conclude therefore there are at least three possibilities:

*rhes
rhesen
rhesen wen*

To avoid ambiguity, I suggest *rhesen* to be the most commonly used (but with no proof/statistics) otherwise, unless talking specifically about 'hair', *rhes* could be any type of 'row'.


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## Encolpius

Thank, now I think your answer is clear.


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## Armas

Finnish: *jakaus*, from jakaa "to divide"


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## Trisia

Romanian: *cărare * = narrow path, footpath
/kəˈrʌre/

Edit: origin? Erm, Latin, I suppose. I don't know how we ended up using this particular word but I suppose it seems fitting somewhat.


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## nimak

*Macedonian*:

*патец* (pátec) ['patɛt͡s] m.

*пат* (pat) _m._ "road", "way" + *-ец* (-ec) _suffix_


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## Awwal12

Awwal12 said:


> It can be anything. The concept of "taking" can be applied very broadly, and "pro-" is polysemantic to begin with. I was unable to find anything of relevance on "пробирать" in the dialectological dictionary, that's for sure. P.S.: Nothing in the dictionary of Old and Early Modern Russian (11th - 17th centuries) either.


P.S.: I believe, it's related to убирать (ubirát') - lit. "to take away", also with a wide set of more or less adjacent meanings; here, apparently, - "to take away hair from the eyesight" ("to take one's hair away into a bride/into a tail/backwards" is a common expression in Russian). The main trouble with the Slavic derivational morphology is that verbal prefixes sometimes simply don't stack - one prefix just replaces another, while the meaning of the original prefixed construction actually remains. The word MIGHT have meant "pulling one's hair apart" (as a process and its result).


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