פָּשַׁת an unused root, perhaps i.q. Arabic فَشَّ to shake up, specially to card cotton (see Avic., in Castell.), Syriac carding. [Instead of this root there is given in Thes. פֵּשַׁשׁ.] Hence—
פִּשְׁתֶּה [in Thes פֵּשֶׁת] with suffix פִּשְׁתִּי Hosea 2: 7, 11 ; and פִּשְׁתָּה plur. פִּשְׁתִּים fem. ( Isa. 19:9 )—(1) flax , sing., Ex. 9:31 ; plur., Levit. 13:47 , seq.; Deut. 22:11 ; Isa. 19:9 ; Jerem. 13:1. פִּשְׁתֵּי הָעֵץ Josh. 2: 6, flax of tree, cotton (see the root), (both flax and cotton are also expressed in Syriac and Arabic by the same word, ىُتُنُ); but this is rendered by LXX., Vulg., Syr., stalks of flax, prop. flax of wood, or flax wood, which would rather be called עֲצֵי הַפִּשְׁתִּים.
(2) a wick made of flax or cotton, Isaiah 42:3 ; 43:17 . (Foster, De Bysso Antiqu., p. 63, considers פִּשְׁתֶּה to be of Egyptian origin, from ϢΕΑΤΣΙ, prop. thread plant, with the art, pi.).
Friday Culture Word: *sndn(?)/linen(garment)
Akkadian: saddinnu, sadinnu, šaddinnu
Greek: σινδών linen
Hebrew: סָדִין
Jewish Aramaic: סְדִינָא
To this list one might add Arabic سدن (sadin), "fat," "blood" and, perhaps more relevantly, "wool." While the Arabic seems to be cognate in some loose sense, the meaning, if it is the same lexeme, has clearly evolved.
The variously spelled Akkadian examples come from El Amarna, Nuzi and Neo-Assyrian. Oppenheim, 249, n. 73, saw the same word as coming from second millennium texts from Mitanni. The very fact that the Akkadian word has several spellings, perhaps indicating uncertainty as to pronunciation, tends to indicate that it is foreign. See Mankowski, 110. As in most of the languages that have this lexeme, the Akkadian can stand for both linen and things made from linen. Kaufman, 94, n. 324, suggests that the lexeme had Anatolian origins. In addition, the lexeme has no reasonable Semitic etymology.
The Greek reflex is at least as old as Herodotus, 5th century BCE. He uses σινδών do describe the material through which certain "tribes" of Babylonians strain pulverized fish to make a kind of meal (1:200) and the material in which the Egyptians wrapped corpses (2:86). Mankowski, 110, notes the Greek -nd- as opposed to the Akkadain -dd- saying this "may represent the original pronunciation, since n assimilates to the following consonant in Akkadian; alternatively, it may be a Greek development or point to an Aramaic intermediary with geminate -dd- in which secondary nasalization occurred. If Mankowski's first suggestion is true, then the Greek reflex may be further evidence for an Anatolian origin.
The four examples of the word in Biblical Hebrew are
Proverbs 31:24, סָדִין עָשְׂתָה, "she makes fine linen;"
Judges 14:12 and 13 Samson's wager with regard to a riddle, שְׁלֹשִׁים סְדִינִים וּשְׁלֹשִׁים חֲלִפֹת בְּגָדִים, "thirty linen (garments) and thirty special (substitute) garments;"
and Isaiah 3:23, וְהַגִּלְיֹנִים וְהַסְּדִינִים וְהַצְּנִיפֹות וְהָרְדִידִים, part of the finery that YHWY will take away, "the transparent(?) (garments) and the linen (garments) and the turbans and the scarves(?)."
Reference:
Mankowski, Paul V., Akkadian Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew, Harvard Semitic Studies, 47, Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2000
Oppenheim, A. Leo, "Essays on Overland Trade in the First Millennium B.C.," Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 21, 1967, 236-254