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أَعْفَرُ

Root: عفر

Full Definition

أَعْفَرُ Dust-coloured inclining to white; of a whitish dust-colour: or white, but not of a clear hue: or, applied to a buckantelope, white, but not of a very clear white, being like the colour of the surface of the earth: or a buck-antelope having a tinge of red over his whiteness, with a short neck; and such is the weakest of antelopes in running: or having a redness in his back, with white flanks: [in the CK, after the words thus rendered, is an omission, of the words أَوِ الأَبْيَضُ وَ:] or such as inhabits elevated, rugged, stony tracts, and hard grounds; and such is red: or having white horns: fem. عَفْرَآءُ: also applied to a she-goat, meaning of a clear white colour: pl. عُفْرٌ.
2 El-Kumeyt says, وَكُنَّا إِذَا جَبَّارُ قَوْمٍ أَرَادَنَا بِكَيْدٍ حَمَلْنَاهُ عَلَى قَرْنِ أَعْفَرَا [And we used, when an insolent tyrant of a people desired to execute against us a plot, to carry him upon the horn of an antelope of a whitish dustcolour, or white but not of a clear hue, &c.]; meaning, we used to slay him, and to carry his head upon the spear-head; for the spear-heads, in time past, were of horns.
3 Hence the saying رَمَانِى عَنْ قَرْنِ أَعْفَرَ i. q. رمانى بِدَاهِيَةٍ [He sent upon me a calamity; or he made a very crafty man to be my assailant]: for the same reason, also, قَرْنُ أَعْفَرَ is proverbially used to signify A difficulty, or distress, that befalls one: and one says to a man who has passed the night in disquieting distress, كُنْتَ عَلَى قَرْنِ أَعْفَرَ [Thou wast pierced by grief]. One says also, of him who is frightened and disquieted, كَأَنَّهُ عَلَى قَرْنِ أَعْفَرَ [He is as though he were upon the horn of an antelope of a whitish dustcolour, &c.: meaning, upon the head of a spear]: the like of this phrase is used by Imra-el-Keys.
4 Also عَفْرَآءُ, A ewe of a colour inclining to whiteness.
5 And أَعْفَرُ, Red sand.
6 [Food of the kind called] ثَرِيد made white: from عُفْرَةٌ signifying the “ colour of the earth. ”
7 عَفْرَآءُ White.
8 أَرْضٌ عَفْرَآءُ Untrodden land.
9 العَفْرَآءُ The thirteenth night [of the lunar month]: or the night of blackness: but accord. to IAar, اللَّيَالِى العُفْرُ signifies the white nights; and so says Th, without particularizing: or the nights thus called are the seventh and eighth and ninth nights of the lunar month; because of the whiteness of the moon [therein]. It is said in a trad. لَيْسَ عُفْرُ اللَّيَالِى كَٱلدَّآدِئِ The moon-lit nights are not like the black nights: some say that this is a proverb.


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