جحمة

جَحْمَة • (jaḥma) f

1. burning fiercely, being fiery, blazing

• According to the lexicographers a Himyaritic borrowing.
• Perhaps instead from the root ج ح م (j ḥ m) “being blazing; vehement” via the idea of staring, as an originally coarse word, or the eyes being considered the window by which one sees the fire of the soul.
• A borrowing from a descendant of Proto-Iranian *čášma n (“eye”), be it via Old South Arabian, can also be presumed, not requiring a particular Iranian source language, since the medial /ʃ/ would have been dissimilated in any case to resolve the homorganicity with /d͡ʒ/.

جَحْمَة • (jaḥma) f

1. (obsolete, Yemen) eye

   Synonym: عَيْن (ʕayn)

   • a. 750, unknown, quoted by Kitāb al-ʿAyn and Taḏhīb al-Luḡa:

     فَفَاضَتْ دُمُوعُ الْجَحْمَتَيْنِ بِعَبْرَةٍ … عَلَى الزُبِّ حَتَّى الزُبِّ فِي المَاءِ غَامِس

     fa-fāḍat dumūʕu l-jaḥmatayni bi-ʕabratin … ʕalā z-zubbi ḥattā z-zubbi fī l-māʔi ḡāmis

     And the tears of the two eyes overflowed without sobbing … over the beard, until the beard was dipping into water

• جَحَّمَ (jaḥḥama, “to regard with fixed eyes”)
• جُحَام (juḥām, “a disease of the eyes where they are swollen”)