ἀββα <Semitic; Roman period>
👉 ἀββα (also ἀββᾶ) m. – ‘father (of God)’ (since NT: Mar. 14.36 etc.); the word occurs in the New Testament always in the expression Ἀββα ὁ πατήρ (NT: Mar. 14.36; Rom. 8.15 and Gal. 4.6); cf. Suda α 10: Ἀββᾶ: ὁ πατήρ. (...) – “abba: father. (...)”.
⚠ Cf. a folk etymology (based on Aramaic words) of the name of the Biblical prophet Habakkuk in Suda α 12: Ἀββακούμ: πατὴρ ἐγέρσεως. τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀββᾶ σημαίνει πατήρ, τὸ δὲ κοὺμ ἔγερσις (...) – “Abbakum (scil. Habakkuk): ‘father of rising’, for abba means ‘father’ and kum ‘rising’”. Cf. κουμ.
🅔 An Aramaic loanword – Old and Official Aramaic ʾb ‘father; ancestor’, Biblical Aramaic ʾaḇ ‘id.’, Jewish Aramaic ʾāḇ, ʾabbā ‘id.’, Syriac ʾabbā ‘father’; cf. Akkadian abu(m) ‘father; ancestor’, Eblaite a-bù ‘father’, Ugaritic ảb ‘id.’, Phoenician and Punic ʾb ‘father; ancestor’, Biblical Hebrew ʾāḇ ‘id.’ etc. Greek ἀββα goes back to the Aramaic emphatic form ʾabbā; the emphatic state in Aramaic represents a definite noun (but note that the emphatic state became dominant in the Roman period and displaced the absolutive state). Cf. ἀβάθ, ἀββᾶς and ἄπα.
📖 Data: CAD: I, 67-73; CDA: 3; DCH: I, 91-98; DJBA: 72f.; DJPA: 31f.; DNWSI: 1-3; DUL: 4f.; HALOT: 1f. and 1805f.; PhPD: 26f.; SL: 1.