Phoeniciann.adj.

Etymology: < Phoenicia (post-classical Latin Phoenicia (5th cent.); classical Latin Phoenīcē, ancient Greek Φοινίκη), the name of an ancient country + -an suffix. Compare Middle French, French phénicien (1512 as adjective, 1557 in langue Phénicienne, 1557 as noun denoting the people, 1713 as noun denoting the language), Spanish †feniçiano (1450). Compare also classical Latin Phoenīcius (adjective), Phoenīx (noun), ancient Greek Φοίνικ-, Φοῖνιξ (noun and adjective), Spanish fenicio, adjective and noun (1499), Italian fenicio, adjective and noun (a1375).Ancient Greek Φοῖνιξ Phoenician probably represents a use of ϕοῖνιξ dark red (adjective and noun) < ϕοινός red (perhaps originally blood-red < the same Indo-European base as bane n.¹) + -ικ- , suffix forming nouns. The chief sense of ϕοῖνιξ in Greek is dark red, tawny (e.g. of a bay horse, of a rusty-red river); the sense ‘purple’ appears to be secondary. The use of this word for the Phoenicians is therefore probably to be explained as denoting reddish or tanned people, rather than those who imported purple dye (for which the Greek word was πορϕύρα : see purpure n. and adj.). An alternative view is that Ancient Greek Φοῖνιξ represents an assimilation to the form of the ancient Greek adjective of a derivative of the Semitic word for the madder plant Rubia tinctorum, Arabic fūwa, apparently related to Hebrew puwwāh, pū'āh, the name of a clan of the tribe of Issachar, which has the gentilic form pūnī. However, the ancient Egyptian word fnḫw is attested very much earlier (from about 2300 b.c. onwards) as a word for the countries of the eastern Mediterranean seaboard, and is also related to a word meaning ‘carpentering’, which appears significant in view of the fact that Phoenicia was the chief source of good timber for Egypt. Phoenicia occurs as a place name in English contexts from Old English onwards (in various forms, including Old English Fenitia, Old English and Middle English Fenice, Middle English Fenicia, Phenicia; the form Phoenicia is attested from at least the late 16th cent.).