mdwt

Egyptian

Etymology

mdwj +‎ -t.

Pronunciation

 

• (reconstructed) IPA^(key): /ˈmaːtʼat/ → /ˈmaːtʼaʔ/ → /ˈmaːtʼa/, /mətʼə(t)/ → /ˈmoːtʼə/, /mətʼə(t)/

• (Old Egyptian, c. 2350 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈmaːtʼat/
• (Middle Egyptian, c. 1700 BCE) IPA^(key): /ˈmaːtʼaʔ/
• (Amarna-period Late Egyptian, c. 1350 BCE) IPA^(key): (stressed) /ˈmaːtʼa/, (unstressed, in construct state) /mətʼə(t)/
• (Late Egyptian, c. 800 BCE) IPA^(key): (stressed) /ˈmoːtʼə/, (unstressed, in construct state) /mətʼə(t)/

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /mɛduːt/
  • Conventional anglicization: medut

Noun

 f

1. words, speech, things said [since the Pyramid Texts]
2. words, text, things written
3. words constituting the contents of something specified; wording, text (of a command, letter, etc.)
4. language, manner of speech [since the Amarna Period]
5. (of the heart/mind) thoughts, words thought internally [Middle Kingdom and Late Egyptian]
6. (law) plea
7. matter, affair, issue (+ genitive: of, concerning (someone or something)) [since the Middle Kingdom]

   ― wḥm mdwt ― to give an account of an issue

8. (with following term) forms abstract nouns; -ness [Greco-Roman Period]
9. used as a generic object for certain verbs such as wḏ (“to command”) and wḏꜥ (“to judge”)

Usage notes

This word displaced the earlier mdw almost fully by Late Egyptian.

Alternative forms

Alternative hieroglyphic writings of mdwt  

mdwt	mdwt	mdwt	mdwt	mdwt	mdwt	mdwtj	mdw
[since the Old Kingdom]	[since the Old Kingdom]	[since the Middle Kingdom]	[since the Middle Kingdom]	[New Kingdom]	[New Kingdom]	[21st Dynasty]	[Greco-Roman Period]
					in hieratic	in hieratic

Derived terms

• wšd r mdwt
• wḏꜥ mdwt
• wḏ mdwt
• mdwt pḥtj
• mdwt m ḥr
• mdwt nb wꜥ
• mdwt nfrt
• mdwt nṯr
• mdwt ḥꜣpt

Descendants

• Demotic Egyptian: mt
  • Akhmimic Coptic: ⲙⲛ̄ⲧ- (mn̄t-)
  • Bohairic Coptic: ⲙⲉⲧ- (met-)
  • Fayyumic Coptic: ⲙⲉⲧ- (met-)
  • Lycopolitan Coptic: ⲙⲛ̄ⲧ- (mn̄t-)
  • Sahidic Coptic: ⲙⲛ̄ⲧ- (mn̄t-)

References

• “mdw.t (lemma ID 78030)”, in Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae‎^[1], Corpus issue 18, Web app version 2.1.5, Tonio Sebastian Richter & Daniel A. Werning by order of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften and Hans-Werner Fischer-Elfert & Peter Dils by order of the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, 2004–26 July 2023
• Erman, Adolf; Grapow, Hermann (1928), Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache‎^[2], volume 2, Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, →ISBN, pages 181.7–182.2
• Faulkner, Raymond Oliver (1962), A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, Oxford: Griffith Institute, →ISBN, page 122