v. (VIII/V_I)

saˁt ḥéyhe yaḥteṭéfen ‘A man (always) repents later’ (Bulakh 2024:146)

Probably a reflexive derivation from ḥéṭaf ‘to sweep off’ with semantic shift ‘to efface one’s own sin’, thus ‘to obliterate one's commited sin’ > ‘to repent’, as in Arabic ˁafā ‘to efface, to forgive’ (Lane 2092–2093) (Bulakh 2024:75, with fn. 51).