Note 5 — Chapter V
Reading edition
They were known as mushkênum, derived from the Shafel-Piel stem of the root (kânu), with the meaning "to humble oneself, to be humble." Combe has compared the similar use of miskîn in Arabic for a man of humble station who is not a descendant of the prophet (cf. "Babyloniaca," III., p. 73 f.). The word passed into Hebrew as miskên, and, with modifications of meaning, into more than one European language (cf. Ital. meschino, meschinello, Portug. mesquinho, French mesquin); see Johns, "Schweich Lectures (1912), pp. 8, 74.