صفر

صَفَرَ

To whistle or utter a sound without articulated letters; of a bird, serpent, or person.

Also used of whistling into a whistle or calling an ass to water by whistling.

• Lane · entry 26095

صَفِرَ

To become empty, void, or vacant.

Said of a house, tent, vessel, skin, hand, or other thing; figuratively, the emptying of a person’s vessels or property can mean that he died or perished.

• Lane · entry 26095
• Lane · entry 26103

صُفِرَ

To suffer from ṣufār, the disease involving yellow fluid in the abdomen.

The verb is explained through the medical noun صُفَارٌ.

• Lane · entry 26095

صَفَّرَ

To make yellow; to dye something yellow.

Applied especially to a garment or piece of cloth.

• Lane · entry 26096

أَصْفَرَ

To empty or make void, especially to deprive a house, tent, or yard of its contents or property.

The causative expression may refer to taking away livestock or property so that the household or yard is left without them.

• Lane · entry 26097

أَصْفَرَ

To become poor.

Said of a person.

• Lane · entry 26097

تَصَفَّرَ

Of cattle, to come into good condition or become fat after the intense summer heat has passed.

The usage is associated with the seasonal period called الصَّفَرِيَّة.

• Lane · entry 26098

اِصْفَرَّ

To become black as well as to become yellow.

The source distinguishes a more constant state from a transient one in related forms; this is a broader Classical usage, not an additional Quranic meaning of مُصْفَرّ.

• Lane · entry 26099

صِفْرٌ

Empty, void, vacant, or devoid of contents; empty-handed or devoid of good.

Applied to houses, tents, vessels, hands, people, and things. The same adjective can be used in idiomatic expressions for total emptiness.

• Lane · entry 26103

صِفْرٌ

Zero or nought in the Indian system of arithmetic notation.

A technical use of the noun for the sign denoting nothing.

• Lane · entry 26103

صُفْرٌ

Gold, gold coins or dinars, and women’s gold ornaments.

The applications are explained either through their yellow color or through resemblance to the metal called صُفْرٌ.

• Lane · entry 26102

صُفْرٌ

A state of madness in which a person’s reason fails.

The idiom لَفِي صُفْرِهِ is connected with the former practice of rubbing such a person with saffron.

• Lane · entry 26102

صَفَرٌ

Hunger or a bout of hunger.

A nominal use of the verbal noun associated with becoming empty.

• Lane · entry 26104

صَفَرٌ

A disease of the belly involving a collection of water and causing the face to become yellow.

This medical meaning is distinguished from the related belief in a serpent or worms in the belly.

• Lane · entry 26104

صَفَرٌ

A supposed serpent, reptile, or worms in the belly that bite the ribs or cause the pain and yellowing associated with hunger.

This is the pre-Islamic medical belief referred to in explanations of the expression لا صَفَرَ; the reported belief in its transmission from person to person was denied.

• Lane · entry 26104

صَفَرٌ

The intellect, understanding, heart, or inmost mind.

Used in expressions for something that does not adhere to one’s mind or that one’s soul does not accept.

• Lane · entry 26104

صَفَرٌ

A contract, compact, covenant, surety, or responsibility.

A conventional nominal meaning synonymous with عَقْدٌ.

• Lane · entry 26104

صَفَرٌ

Ṣafar, the second month of the Arabian calendar; also, in الصَّفَرَانِ, the pair of Muḥarram and Ṣafar.

The month-name has several traditional explanations connected with emptied houses, provisions, or travel and raiding.

• Lane · entry 26104

صُفْرَةٌ

Yellowness or a known yellow color; the term can also be applied to blackness.

The color is described as less intense than red and may occur in animals, other things, or water.

• Lane · entry 26108

صُفْرَةُ

A proper name for a she-goat.

A lexicalized proper-name use.

• Lane · entry 26108

صَفَرِيٌّ

Belonging to the early autumn or the transition from summer heat to cold; by extension, the offspring, rain, or plant growth associated with that period.

The seasonal boundaries vary among authorities; the term may denote the period itself, its rain, an autumn plant, or offspring of sheep and goats born then.

• Lane · entry 26109

صُفْرِيَّةٌ

A yellow variety of dates from Yemen, dried while still in the state called بُسْر.

The dried dates crumble when rubbed and are used to sweeten or replace sugar in سَوِيق.

• Lane · entry 26110

الصُّفْرِيَّةُ

A sect of the Khārijites, also called a party of the Ḥarūriyya.

The name has several reported derivations, including relation to a place, a leader, yellow complexions, or being void of religion.

• Lane · entry 26110

الصُّفْرِيَّةُ

The Mahālaba, a group celebrated for bounty and generosity.

A separate eponymous use of the same form, related to Abū Ṣufra.

• Lane · entry 26110

صِفْرِيتٌ

A poor man; in the plural, poor men.

The final ت is described as augmentative.

• Lane · entry 26113

صَفَارٌ

The dry remains of the plant بُهْمَى, a barleygrass, or a related plant.

Its name is associated with its yellow color; its prickles cling to horses’ lips.

• Lane · entry 26114

صُفَارٌ

A disease involving yellow fluid or water collecting in the abdomen and making the person yellow.

The entry also gives a surgical description of the condition and identifies it with a related medical term in one account.

• Lane · entry 26115

صُفَارٌ

The yellowing of wheat before the grain has become full.

A specialized agricultural use.

• Lane · entry 26115

صُفَارٌ

Remains of straw or other fodder lodged at the roots of an animal’s teeth.

A term for material left around the teeth of beasts.

• Lane · entry 26115

صُفَارٌ

A tick or similar small insect found in the solid hoofs or toes of camels.

The term may denote the tick itself or, according to one report, a small animalcule in that location.

• Lane · entry 26115

صَفِيرٌ

Whistling or the sound produced by whistling.

The noun is also used in the modern language for sapphire, treated separately below.

• Lane · entry 26117

صَفِيرٌ

Sapphire.

A later or contemporary lexical use.

• Lane · entry 26117

صُفَارَةٌ

A plant or herbage that has withered and changed to yellow.

The word denotes the altered plant material rather than yellow color in the abstract.

• Lane · entry 26118

صَفِيرَةٌ

A dam or embankment between two tracts of land.

A specialized geographical noun.

• Lane · entry 26119

صُفَارَى

A species of bird that whistles.

The name is motivated by the bird’s call.

• Lane · entry 26120

صُفَارِيَّةٌ

A particular small bird, identified with a صَعْوَةٌ or related passerine bird.

The form has variant pronunciation and spelling in the cited discussion.

• Lane · entry 26121

صُفُورِيَّةٌ

A kind of plant; alternatively, according to another lexical report, a kind of garment or cloth.

The two applications are reported as competing lexical explanations.

• Lane · entry 26122

صَفَّارٌ

A maker or fabricator of brass vessels or brasswork.

A professional noun derived from the metal sense of صُفْرٌ.

• Lane · entry 26123

صُفَّارٌ

The entire quill of a feather.

A specialized noun with a distinct vocalization from the occupational term صَفَّارٌ.

• Lane · entry 26124

صَفَّارَةٌ

A whistle or pipe, especially a hollow copper object used by a boy to whistle to pigeons or call an ass to drink.

The noun denotes the instrument, not merely the act of whistling.

• Lane · entry 26125

الصَّفَّارَةُ

The anus.

A dialectal use reported for the Sawād.

• Lane · entry 26125

صَافِرٌ

A whistler or one that whistles; also a bird that whistles, especially a nonpredatory or cowardly bird.

The bird application includes several reported identifications and is not limited to one species.

• Lane · entry 26126

صَافِرٌ

A thief or coward, conventionally associated with furtive whistling.

In one explanation the whistling is directed to a woman for illicit intercourse; the source also uses the word for a cowardly person.

• Lane · entry 26126

صَافِرٌ

In مَا بِهَا صَافِرٌ, no one is in the house.

The expression literally refers to someone who whistles or someone to be called by whistling; the active form is interpreted as passive in this construction.

• Lane · entry 26126

أَصْفَرُ

A greater or more habitual whistler, in a comparative expression.

A comparative or superlative use illustrated by أَصْفَرُ مِنْ بُلْبُلٍ.

• Lane · entry 26128

أَصْفَرُ

More or most empty, void, or vacant.

Used of a house that is especially devoid of good or of the Book of God.

• Lane · entry 26128

بَنُو الأَصْفَرِ

The Greeks or Romans, especially their kings.

The ethnic name has several traditional explanations, including an ancestor’s complexion.

• Lane · entry 26128

الأَصْفَرَانِ

A pair of yellow or yellow-associated substances, variously identified as gold and saffron, wars and saffron, wars and gold, or saffron and raisins.

The exact pair varies among lexical authorities.

• Lane · entry 26128

الصَّفْرَاءُ

Gold.

A nominalized color term used for the precious metal.

• Lane · entry 26128

أَصْفَرُ

Yellow bile, one of the bodily humors.

The noun is motivated by the bile’s color.

• Lane · entry 26128

أَصْفَرُ

A bow made from the tree called نَبْع.

A specialized nominal application of the form.

• Lane · entry 26128

أَصْفَرُ

A female locust that is without eggs.

A specialized zoological use.

• Lane · entry 26128

أَصْفَرُ

A particular plant or herb of plains, soft ground, or sands, eaten eagerly by camels.

The plant is described as spreading along the ground and having leaves like lettuce.

• Lane · entry 26128

مُصْفِرٌ

A poor man.

A specialized active-participial noun distinct from the color adjective مُصْفَرّ.

• Lane · entry 26130

مَصَفِّرُ اسْتِهِ

A derogatory expression for a cowardly or effeminate, luxury-softened man; it is also explained as one who dyed his buttocks with saffron and practiced anal intercourse.

The sources dispute whether the expression derives from whistling or from dyeing yellow; both explanations are preserved because they yield the same conventional expression.

• Lane · entry 26132

المُصَفِّرَةُ

Those whose distinguishing ensign or sign is yellow.

An appellation formed in parallel with names based on red or white insignia.

• Lane · entry 26132

مَصْفُورٌ

Hungry.

A passive-participial adjective associated with the empty or unfed state.

• Lane · entry 26133

مَصْفُورٌ

Of an animal, having the ear wholly cut away or being lean and emaciated, in terminology concerning animals forbidden for sacrifice.

The authorities disagree over which of the related forms carries the severed-ear versus emaciated meaning.

• Lane · entry 26133

مَصْفُورٌ

Afflicted with ṣufār or discharging yellow fluid from the belly.

A medical passive-participial use.

• Lane · entry 26133