Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon

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ضَيْفٌ

Root: ضيف

Full Definition

ضَيْفٌ A guest: and guests: so called because adjoined to the family and fed with them: it is applied to one, and to a pl. number, and to a male and to a female, because it is originally an Verbal.Noun: [as a sing.,] i. q. مُضَيَّفٌ , which is syn. with نَزِيلٌ: and applied to a pl. number, it may be pl. [or rather a quasi-pl. n.] of ضَائِفٌ , which is syn. with نَازِلٌ; thus being of the class of زَوْزٌ and صَوْمٌ: and it is also pluralized, having for its pls. أَضْيَافٌ and ضِيفَانٌ and ضُيُوفٌ and ضِيَافٌ, the first of which is properly a pl. of pauc., but is also used as a pl. of mult.: and a female is termed ضَيْفَةٌ as well as ضَيْفٌ: El-Ba'eeth says, لَقًى حَمَلَتْهُ أُمُّهُ وَهْىَ ضَيْفَةٌ [A castaway with whom his mother became pregnant while she was a guest]: or, accord. to AHeyth, the meaning here is that which follows.
2 ضَيْفَةٌ applied to a woman signifies also Menstruating: so says AHeyth with reference to the citation above from El-Ba'eeth.
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