Pharaoh

פרעה

"Pouro" in Coptic, from "Ouro" = "to rule", with the prefix "p" to indicate that it is masculine; whence "Touro" = "queen" and "Metouro" = "dominion".

This was the title used by Egyptian kings until the Persian invasion. Yehudit texts often add "Melech Mitsrayim (מלך מצרים) = king of Egypt", as though Pharaoh were not understood as a title but thought of as a name; and sometimes the Pharaoh's personal or kingly name is also added, as with Pharaoh Necho in 2 Kings 23:29 or Pharaoh Khaphra (or Khafre) in Jeremiah 44:30, though this latter is a textual error, giving the spelling of his name as Chaphr'a (חפרע).

The Yehudit root is PER'A (פרע) = "prince", but the root was evinced precisely from the word Pharaoh. We have to assume that, by Yirme-Yahu's (Jeremiah's) time, the word Pharaoh had entered the language without any residual knowledge of its Egyptian source, in the way that Russians might not realise that Czar, or Germans that Kaiser, stem from the Latin Caesar.

English writes the name as Pharaoh, but pronounces it as Phar'oh. Yehudit writes it as Par'oh but pronounces it as Pharoh. 

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