طيفور

طَيْفُور (noun)

Etymology: From the root ط ف ر (ṭ f r) related to jumping, for the bird. The origin of the name for the tray is hitherto unexplained. It may be accounted that the ship-name طَيْفُورِيَّة (ṭayfūriyya) is derived from the bird-name as ships are commonly likened to birds and then from the ship-name comes the tray-name طَيْفُورِيَّة (ṭayfūriyya) because the equating of ships with bowls was ubiquitous in the Middle Ages, and after that the form طَيْفُور (ṭayfūr) in the sense of a tray was back-formed from طَيْفُورِيَّة (ṭayfūriyya) by force of its tediousness in familiar life. However it also matches with Persian تفور (tafur, “clay; earthenware”), Old Armenian թափուր (tʻapʻur, “wooden tray”), the same way that Arabic تَيْغَار (tayḡār, “a large pot”) corresponds via Aramaic to Persian تغار (taġâr, “tub, through”).