Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon

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ضَعْفٌ

Root: ضعف

Full Definition

ضَعْفٌ an Verbal.Noun of 1, like ضُعْفٌ , [both, when used as simple substs., signifying Weakness, feebleness, &c.,] but some say that the former is in the judgment or opinion, and the latter in the body; and ضَعَفٌ signifies the same, and is in the body and also in the judgment or opinion and the intellect.
2 ضَعْفُ التَّأْلِيفِ [Weakness of construction, in language,] is such a construction of the members of a sentence as is contrary to the [generally approved] rules of syntax; as when a pronoun is introduced before its noun with respect to the actual order of the words and the order of the sense [in a case in which the pronoun is affixed to the agent in a verbal proposition]; for instance, in the phrase, ضَرَبَ غُلَامُهُ زَيْدًا [“ His, ” i. e. Zeyd's, “ young man beat Zeyd ”]. When the pronoun is affixed to the objective complement, as in خَافَ رَبَّهُ عُمَرُ [“ 'Omar feared his Lord ”] such introduction of it is common: and it is [universally] allowable when the pronoun is of the kind called ضَمِيرُ الشَّأْنِ, as in إِنَّهُ زَيْدٌ قَائِمٌ; or ضَمِيرُ رُبَّ, as in رُبَّهُ رَجُلًا لَقِيتُهُ; or ضَمِيرُ نِعْمَ, as in نِعْمَهُ رَجُلًا زَيْدٌ.
3 [In the CK, a signification belonging to ضُعْف is assigned to ضَعْف.]
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