ܓܽܘܕܳܐ [?] gwdʾ guddā fem. rar. masc. 1. troop, formation (of soldiers) 2. musical chorus
Calque: ܪܫ ܕܓܘܕܐ rš d-gwdʾ chief of the troop
MP gund [gwnd] army, troop; group, gathering (CPD 38); Arm. LW gund, in the recent borrowing gundsaar (← MP gund sālār) and in the older gndapet (Bolognesi 1960, 51; Hübschmann AG 130, no. 148); ManParth. gwnd /gund/ army, troop, group, gathering (Nyberg 86; Durkin-Meisterernst 2004, 167; cf. Bailey 1955a, 73 f.); NP γund collected, assembled; a crowd; γunda collected, accumulated (Steingass 896 and 897); NP, Arab. ǰund an army, body of troops, legion (Steingass 373; Horn 179). — JBA gwndʾ troops (Shaked 1987, 261); Md. gudā and gundā (Drower – Macuch 1963, 82 and 84; Nöldeke MG 75, see below). If the word is of Iranian origin, Syr. rš d-gwdʾ is a calque on MP gund sālār "chief of the troop", as suggested by Gignoux 1999, 88. However, the etymon of this family of words is very disputed. The Semitic origin of. Syr. gwdʾ, Md. gwndʾ, gwdʾ, Arab. ǧund, NP gund, Gr. Byz. γοῦνδα was firstly claimed by Nöldeke (MG 75), who also quoted Hebr. gədud (from which Ethiopic gedūd plunderer, robber), and—as Leonid Kogan (personal communication) points out—the Semitic origin of Aram. guddā is probable and widely accepted by Semitic scholars and linguists: see, for instance, Nöldeke MG 75 and Drower – Macuch 1963, 82 and 84 (who connect the Md. words with the Semitic root GDD "to raid, to cut"); Fraenkel 1886, 238; Belardi 1954, 628 n. 5 (MP gund "division" of Aramaic origin); Szemerényi 1980a, who puts forward that MP gund is a loanword from Semitic gunn, cf. Akkad. gunnu elite troops (CAD 5, 134), with subsequent hypercorrect dissimilation as regards the usual change /nd/ > /nn/ attested in ManMP (on which see Benveniste 1932a); Koehler – Baumgarten 1995, 170; etc. On the other hand, from Lagarde (GA 24, 56) onwards, many scholars, especially Iranologists, hold that MP gund and related forms are Iranian, and consequently the Semitic correspondent words would be loanwords from Iranian: see Shaked 1987, 261; Mancini 1995, 94 n. 63, who dislikes Szemerényi's hypothesis; Rossi 2002. In my opinion, the question remains unsolved, especially because MP gund "army, troop" still lacks a plausible Indo-Iranian etymon (pace Rossi 2002). Furthermore, the Semitic forms are frequent and early attested, so that the word should have been borrowed not from MP, but from OP, or at least from Parthian. On the other hand, even if the Semitic origin seems probable, the relation with Akkad. gunnu "elite troops" is unconvincing, and the derivation from the root GDD is preferable: however, this relationship does not seem completely demonstrated ● gwdʾ troop, formation (of soldiers) Gn 49, 23; 2 Sm 2, 25; ES 1, 505B; Bal 253, 4; Jul 176, 28; musical chorus ψ 149, 3; 150, 4 etc.; rš d-gwdʾ JšJS 535, 9–10 ◆ LS 104a–b; Nöldeke 1898 § 84