Proto-West-Caucasian: *pǝsǝtA (?)
Meaning: cloud
Abkhaz: a-pstħʷa
Abaza: pstħwa
Comments: In Abkh. there coexist variants á-pta and á-pstħʷa (bz. á-pstħʷa). The variant á-pta may be explained by a secondary elision of -s- to avoid contamination with a-psta 'ravine' (see Шагиров 2, 28); we may also accept Shagirov's explanation (ibid.) of -ħʷa as an unvoiced variant of *ʕʷa 'smoke' (q.v.). We are thus left with the PAT root *pǝsǝtA 'cloud' whose further etymology is unclear. Shagirov's attempt (ibid.) to explain *pǝsǝtA from *pǝsǝ 'water, liquid' + *tA 'to give' must be rejected on accent grounds: the root *pǝsA 'to wet, liquid' (q.v.) belongs to the dominant accent class in PAT and we should expect the accentuation *a-psǝ́ta (*a-psáta) in Abkh. Abdokov's (1973, 27, 64) comparison with PAK *pč́a 'cloud', *pč́áʁʷa 'fog' must be rejected on phonetic grounds.
