بريد

Already in the 6th century, from Byzantine Greek βέρηδος (bérēdos), βέρεδος (béredos, “post-horse”), from Latin verēdus.

• IPA^(key): /ba.riːd/

بَرِيد • (barīd) m (plural بُرُد‎ (burud)) (in verse also بُرْد‎ (burd))

1. post, mail, an institution to send messages, intelligence
2. (archaic) messenger, courier, express, estafette, a person employed in the institution of mail or intelligence

   Synonyms: رَسُول‎ (rasūl), قَيْنَاب‎ (qaynāb), قَانِب‎ (qānib), فَيْج‎ (fayj), فُرَانِق‎ (furāniq)

3. (obsolete) the beast by which messages are sent by the mail institution, a post-horse, post-mule or post-camel
4. (obsolete) a measure of distance, a postal route
   • a. 1229, Yāqūt al-Ḥamawīy, Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, editor, كتاب معجم البلدان [kitāb muʿjam al-buldān]‎, volume 1, Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, published 1866, line 9, page 37:

     ‏فأمّا الْبَرِيد ففيه خلاف وذهب قوم إلى أنه بالبادية اثنا عشر ميلا وبالشام وخراسان ستة أميال‎

     About the postal route there is disagreement. Folks believed that in the desert it is twelve miles and in Syria and Khorasan six miles.

5. (obsolete, rare) post office, a stationed relay

• سَاعِي بَرِيدٍ‎ (sāʕī barīdin, “postman”)
• بَرِيدِيّ‎ (barīdiyy, “postal; postmaster; courier”)
• أَبْرَدَ‎ (ʔabrada, “to sent onto the way as a courier; to send a courier to; to send by way of post”)

• Bernburg, Lutz Richter and EIr (2012-02-23), “Greece xiv. Greek Loanwords in Medieval New Persian”, in Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition‎, New York, embraces Zimmern’s etymology.
• Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Angeles, editors (2017) Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou. Perspectives phraséologiques et étymologiques (in French), Berlin: De Gruyter, page 122, recognizes the Latin origin but assumes a Classical Syriac **ܒܪܝܕܐ (**brīdā) mediary which is denied by Ullmann, Manfred (1997) Zur Geschichte des Wortes barīd „Post“ [About the history of the word barīd ‘post’] (Beiträge zur Lexikographie des Klassischen Arabisch; 13)‎ (in German), München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Kommission bei der C.H.Beck’schen Verlagsbuchhandlung, →ISBN, page 8 footnote 19 (Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften; 1997/1) by information from Rainer Degen that it is a dis legomenon transcription for all what is attested of the term in Aramaic, “bˀrwd²”, in The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1986–, “byryd”, in The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project, Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1986–.
• Ekbal, Kamran (1983), “sursat – Eine Untersuchung zum persischen Steuerwesen in der Kadscharenzeit”, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft‎ (in German), volume 133, page 150, repeats after Alois Sprenger 1864 who only relates the common story the etymology from Persian بریده‎ (borida, “docked”) and after Sourdel and Frye the Assyrian one.
• Lane, Edward William (1863), “بريد”, in Arabic-English Lexicon, London: Williams & Norgate, page 185, introduces another false etymology connecting the word to Hebrew פֶּרֶד‎ (péreḏ, “mule, hinny”).
• Quatremère, Étienne Marc (1845) Histoire des sultans mamlouks, de l'Égypte. Tome second, deuzième partie.‎ (in French), Paris: Oriental Translation Fund, pages 87–92 footnote 34, already recognized the Roman derivation and refuted Medieval folk-etymologies of which the most persisting is that the word would be related to Persian بریده‎ (burîda, “docked, having the tail clipped”) because the post-horses were marked so by Darius the Great or similar – according to which legend some Persian king according to Yāqūt al-Ḥamawīy (a. 1229), Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, editor, كتاب معجم البلدان [kitāb muʿjam al-buldān]‎ (in Arabic), volume 1, Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, published 1866, page 37 line 19 seqq. marked horses of couriers for them to be recognized and provided for by governors.
• Sourdel, Dominique (1960), “Barīd”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam. Second Edition, volume 1, Leiden: Brill, pages 1045–1046, confused as a mere compilator, derives the Arabic from Byzantine and Latin but that from perhaps Assyrian, apparently not knowing its origin in Proto-Celtic *uɸorēdos (“horse”). In the glossary page 182 they suggest that the Assyrian word derives from Latin.
• Steingass, Francis Joseph (1884), “بريد”, in The Student's Arabic–English Dictionary‎, London: W.H. Allen, page 121
• Ullmann, Manfred (1997) Zur Geschichte des Wortes barīd „Post“ [About the history of the word barīd ‘post’] (Beiträge zur Lexikographie des Klassischen Arabisch; 13)‎ (in German), München: Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Kommission bei der C.H.Beck’schen Verlagsbuchhandlung, →ISBN (Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften; 1997/1), tracks the history of the word by two hundred quotes.
• Wehr, Hans (1979), “بريد”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN, page 64
• Zimmern, Heinrich (1915) Akkadische Fremdwörter als Beweis für babylonischen Kultureinfluss (in German), Leipzig: A. Edelmann, page 7 knows the Roman derivation but following the topic of his book to list as many Akkadian cultural influences as possible throws out the idea of a borrowing from Akkadian 𒉽𒄬 (PAP.ḪAL /purīdu/, “leg; roaming one”, in the literal sense as well as in the sense of messenger), which comes from 𒄷𒄭 (MUD /parādu/, “to be terrified, to be scared; to be disturbed, to not rest, to keep moving; to run at full speed, to hastily get away, to move urgently”).

بريد • (brid) m

1. attack, assault
2. beginning, starting point, access

• برید کول‎ (“to attack”)

بريد • (buríd) m

1. separation
2. absence
3. border