ḫūqu
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Meanings:
step, rung
de:German: Deutsch Stufe, Sprosse
fr:French: Français marche, barre
Distribution: SBSB: Standard Babylonian (ca. 1000–0 BCE), LBLB: Late Babylonian (ca. 626 BCE – 100 CE)
Grammar:
pos: subst.Substantiveroot: ḫwqII/w (mediae infirmae) (?)pattern: PūS
Etymology: Derived ＜ ḫâqu (?) Cf. (acc. to AHw) Aram./Syr. ḥwq, ḥwqʾ (ḥūq, ḥawqā) “stair step”, see Sokoloff 2002, 435; Sokoloff 2009, 430.
1Transf. mng. in the context of disease
SBSB: Standard Babylonian (ca. 1000–0 BCE) — new attestation (not in AHw/CAD) [...- š]ú ikkalšu ḫu-⸢qu⸣ iṣṣanabbassu Sakikkû XXIII 33′ “[h]is [...] hurts him, a critical state(?) seizes him constantly”. Note the similar section combining ḫūqu with kurummat qubūri/kimaḫḫi “(offering) ration of his grave” in Sakikkû XVI 81–82 (97′–98′ in Heeßel 2000) again with the intake of food. new
Discussion
Note also the Syr. verb ḥwq “to creak”, see Sokoloff 2009, 430; Drower/Macúch 1963, 137 for the suggestion in Adamson 1979, 6 (following in turn Scheil 1917, 130) that the term may represent a onomatopoetic expression for “death rattle”.