ܐܰܡܨܳܐ mṣʾ āmṣā sour food
Lagarde—followed by LS—connected this word to NP xāmīz broth strained and left to become jelly (Steingass 443), continuation of MP xāmīz [hʾmyc] pickled meat (CPD 93); cf. also MP āmiz [ʾmyc] side dish, vegetable (CPD 8); Khot. haʾmiʾtcī (Henning 1965b, 245 n. 28); Arm. LW (?) amič (Hübschmann AG 96, no. 16). — Aram. ʾmṣ, Talm. Aram. ʾwmṣʾraw meat, Arab. āmeṣ, amiṣ. Henning 1965b, 245 n. 28 derives the Iranian words from MP xām [hʾm] cude, raw (CPD 93); according to Hübschmann 1892, 232 no. 5, Arm. amič is a loanword from MP *āmīč, of the same root of NP āmēz mixture, from āmēxtan to mix (Steingass 102); I believe that a connection is probable with Ind. āmiṣá- flesh; raw meat; fish, etc. (Turner 1966, no. 1256). Leonid Kogan (personal communication) tentatively suggests that the Iranian forms, formally and semantically, could have been influenced by, or contaminated with, the Semitic root ḥmṣ to be sour (especially of meats), attested in Akkad. emṣu sour (verbal adjective), Hebr. ḥāmēṣ sour bread, and also in Syr. (cf. ḥmaṣ to be sour; ḥammūṣā sour, ḥammūṣūṯā sourness: LS 240b) ● BA 845; apud Tagrit. et Mosul. carnis pannulus crudis BB 192,1 ◆ LS 26a; Lagarde GA 12, 24; Nöldeke 1898 § 119