पर्शु

Etymology

From Proto-Indo-Aryan *párśuṣ, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *párĉuš, from Proto-Indo-European *pérḱus, whence Avestan 𐬞𐬆𐬭𐬆𐬯𐬎𐬱‎ (pərəsuš, “rib, side”), Kurdish parsû (“rib”), Ossetian фарс (fars, “side”), Old Church Slavonic прьси (prĭsi, “breast”).

In the Rig-Veda, parśu means only "rib", but it came also to mean "sickle" in the later Atharva-Veda. This semantic transfer becomes clear when we take into consideration the rib-like shape of the sickle and realize that the rib of a horse was actually sharpened to produce the instrument.

Pronunciation

• (Vedic) IPA^(key): /pɐ́ɽ.ɕu/
• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈpɐɽ.ɕu/