Page:The Religion of Ancient Egypt.djvu/110

 words so ending, whatever be their meaning; as hetra, whether signifying "join," "horse," or "tribute;" petra, "behold;" tra, "season." Another more obvious sense, "sacred," "divine," may be justified by the Greek text of the tablet of Canopus, where nutra is translated, as applied to the sacred animals. But this meaning, though a certain one, occurs but seldom in the Egyptian texts, and when it so occurs is, after all, only a derived meaning, as is in fact the case with the Greek, the first sense of which is "strong," "vigorous." The notion expressed by nutar as a noun, and nutra as an adjective and verb, must be sought in the Coptic nomti, which in the translation of the Bible corresponds to the Greek words, , , , "power," "force," "strong," "fortify," "protect."

The reason why the identification of the old form nutar with the more recent nomti as well as nuti has