ܕܣܬܒܝܪܐ dstbyrʾ bill of divorce
Shaked (1985, 513) traces back the Syr. loanword to MP dastwar [dstwbl] authority, priest, minister (CPD 25), ManMP dstwr /dastwar/ authority, protector (Durkin-Meisterernst 2004, 142), NP dastūr leave, permission, privilege, high priest, record, formula etc. (Steingass 525): according to Shaked, the MP word also means "authority, record, formula; dismissal"; in order to support the semantics of the loanword, the scholar observes: “The spelling of the Syriac word suggests that it was pronounced dastwer or dastwīr, and it is possible that the second element, though deriving from the same verbal root bar- as in dastwar, has behind it a passive stem of the verb, the original compound being *dasta-br̥ya-, with the meaning ‘carried by the authority, i.e. a document’, as opposed to *dasta-bara- ‘he who carries authority’. The two originally distinct compounds might have fallen together in the later language” (Shaked 1985, 513; cf. Id. 1987, 261). According to Macuch (1988; see Ead. 2005, 384 F. 7 and 2005b, 106), the legal meaning of MP dastwar is "legal predecessor, informant"; see also Yakubovitch 2004, 393 ff. ● Syriac magic bowls from Babylonia (Shaked 1985, 513), Catalogue of the Babylonian Museum 16086 and 16019 ◆ Kent 1911; Hamilton 1971, 134