ܓܰܙܙܳܐ gzʾ gazzā treasure
OP *ganza- (Median); MP ganǰ ṙgnc; ManMP gnz] treasure, treasury (CPD 35; Nyberg 81); Arm. LW ganj (where -j = /-dz/; Bolognesi 1960, 49; Mancini 1987, 56 ff.; Hübschmann AG 126, no. 129); NP ganǰ a store, hidden treasure (Steingass 1098). — Off. Aram. (documents from Egypt) gnzʾ (Hinz 1975, 102); Md. gynzʾ, gʾnzʾ, Talm. Aram. gzʾ (Telegdi 237, 42). See, in general, Mancini 1987, 36 ff: OP *ganza- ® Bibl. Aram. ginzayyā (Ezra 5, 17; 6, 1); ganzê (Ezra 7, 20); Bibl. Aram. ® Hebr. ginzê hammelek (Esther 3, 9; 4, 7), always in passages dealing with the Achaemenid administration. The post-Biblical Aramaic languages created a verbal root GNZ, cf. JBA gnz to keep, accumulate; Syr. *gnaz to hide, conceal (only past part. gnīz); cf. also Modern Hebr. gnz to treasure, accumulate, hide, conceal (Mancini 1987, 38 n. 54; Telegdi, cit.). See also the following entry ● 1Rg 7, 51; 14, 26; cf. ES 1, 481A; Afr 123, 2; ER 118, 9; asd 99, 10; title of a liturgical book EOE 219, 1 ◆ LS 111a, Lagarde GA 27, 67; PS Suppl. 72; Khurshudian 1998, 46; Militarev – Kogan 2000, no. 87 (for Semitic and Aramaic verbal roots meaning "to bury" and related forms)
As demonstrated by Henning (1963, 196–198), the primary Ir. form is *gazna-, continued in Parth. gzn (see Ganzaka, the name of a city in Atropatenian Media), and in many Eastern Ir. languages, for example Sogd. γzn-, γznʾk treasure, Khwaresmian γzdk rich (-zd- < -zn-) and Ossetic gäzduk; see also the city name Ghazna (from an unknown Eastern Ir. language). In contrast, *ganza-, attested only in the Western Ir. languages, is the result of a metathesis /zn/ > /nz/. According to Henning (who follows Hübschmann 1895, 232), OP *ganza- is of Median origin, because in Western Ir. languages the OIr. cluster -zn- appears as -šn- (this outcome is, in fact, confirmed by NP gašn, gašan "plentiful, numerous", so as to say "a whole treasury full of", Steingass 1091; the semantic shift, according to Henning, allows the survival of gašn by the side of the borrowed ganz). The OP word was also borrowed into Armenian ganj, into Gr. γάζα, from which comes Lat. gaza, and into Skr. gañja (Mancini 1987; Henning 1963, 197).