One cannot…choose an idea more petty and more material, than that by which the Hellenists have rendered by the word πλενα, a rib…The word can only be composed of one root and of one sign, or of two contracted roots…

Now what is the meaning of the root צע? Is it not that which is attached to all curving, all circumferential form, to all exterior superficies of things, as I have stated in v. 17 of this chapter?

Therefore the word signifies exactly an envelope, an exterior covering, a protecting shelter. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, Fabré d’Olivet, p. 89)