Tidy Lookup
All sites11
Curious Word of the Daycuriouswordoftheday.com

ushabti

noun /uːˈʃabti/

  1. In Ancient Egypt, a figurine of a dead person, placed in their tomb to do their work for them in the afterlife.

    These little images were called in Egyptian “Ushabti,” or “Respondents,” and were in fact supposed to act as servants of the deceased, it being their duty to answer for him and serve as his substitutes when called upon to do labourer's work [...].

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Egyptian w-S-b-t:y-A53 (wšbtj, “ushabti”, literally “answerer”), by folk etymology from earlier SA-wA-b-t:y-A53 (šꜣwꜣbtj), perhaps from S-wA-b-M1 (šwꜣb, “persea (tree)”), which may have been the material they were originally made from. The variant forms shawabti, shabti are borrowed directly from the earlier Egyptian forms šꜣwꜣbtj and šꜣbtj, respectively.

Adapted from the Wiktionary entry ushabti (CC BY-SA 4.0).

← urstromtalusquebaugh →

Another random word More words starting with U