Thoth

Thoth is written ḏḥwty djehuti in Egyptian. The underlying word root seems to be ḏḥ / dḥ / dh, with various spellings. It’s pretty hard to pin down. The overall basic meaning is “downward” or “putting something down or beneath”. A very special meaning is “putting down in stead”, which is the basic strategy of the spooks, who always give us lies in stead of the truth.

As usual with gods, Thoth is composed of puns with his name.

• Thoth has a downward-curved beak, because Egyptian dḥ / Semitic tḥt means “down” & “under”. It’s often written with determinant glyphs 𓀒𓀡 of people “falling down”, or 𓅪 the sparrow as a “lowly” bird.
• Thoth is depicted as a baboon with prominent buttocks, because Egyptian dḥ / Semitic tḥt also denotes bodily “bottom parts”.
• Thoth is an ibis, because tḫn for “ibis” somewhat puns with dḥ / dhn. This word is not related though, and probably comes from ṯḥn for “sparkling” & “bright“, for the plumage. But another word ḏḥw for “ibis” is claimed to have existed, and this one would be derived from ḏḥ for the “downwards” beak.
• Thoth is a scribe in the bureaucratic sense, because dhn means “allocating”, “appointing”, “nominating”. All these meanings likely come from the same archaic root ḏḥ / dḥ / dh for “putting things down”, and are often written with 𓏞 the scribe’s equipment glyph.
• Thoth may also be a scribe in the literal sense, probably for a (very fuzzy) pun of ḏḥw.ty with zẖȝ.tj, a passive grammar form of “writing”.
• Thoth may also be a scribe in the literal sense, because ṯḥn for “brightening“ corresponds to Arabic ḍḥ for “making clear”, and to Aramaic ṣḥḥ for “writing”. That derived meaning is not attested for Egyptian though.
• Thoth is the inventor of the alphabet, perhaps because his name puns with ṯjt / tjt for “glyphs”.
• Thoth records the judgement about the deceased in the underworld, because his name ḏḥw.ty puns with dwȝtyw “underworld”.
• Thoth is a spook symbol for subjugation, because Egyptian dḥ / Semitic tḥt also means “subjecting”, “humbling”, “making low”.
• Thoth is a spook symbol for falsification, because his name ḏḥw.ty puns with Egyptian thj.tj, a passive grammar form of “falsifying”. (Compare the scribe pun with zẖȝ.tj.)
• Thoth is a spook symbol for deception, because Egyptian dhn / Semitic tḥt also mean “appointing in stead”, derived from putting someone “under” oneself. Hebrew תחת tḥt is in fact a fairly common grammar particle, simply meaning “instead of”. (Compare the Horus puns, where ẖr also means “down” & “instead”.)
• Thoth is a spook symbol for concealment, because tḫn for “ibis” puns perfectly with tḫn for “hidden”.
• There are many mentionings of a mythical Book of Thoth, which contains the gods’ knowledge, forbidden to regular humans. My guess is that it was really a “Book of Instead-of Concepts”, much like later “religious” texts like Bible or Talmud.
• In Greek, Thoth was called Tautos, which puns with τωθάζω tothazo for “mockery”.