حُبَاحِبٌ

Root: حب

Full Definition

حُبَاحِبٌ , or أَبُو حُبَاحِبٍ, [A kind of fire-fly;] a fly that flies in the night, resembling fire, emitting rays like a lamp: AHn says that حباحب and ابوحباحب were both unknown to him, and that nothing respecting them had been heard by him from the Arabs; but that some people asserted the insect thus called to be the يَرَاع, a moth that, when it flies by night, no person not knowing it would doubt to be a spark of fire: Aboo-Tálib says, as on the authority of Arabs of the desert, that حباحب is the name of a flying thing longer than the common fly, and slender, that flies between sunset and nightfall, resembling a spark of fire: or, accord. to As, it is a flying thing, like the common fly, with a wing that becomes red; when it flies appearing at a distance like a lighted piece of fire-wood. نَارُ الحُبَاحِبِ and نَارُأَبِى حُبَاحِبٍ and simply الحُبَاحِبُ mean The fire of the fly above mentioned: or of El-Hobáhib or Aboo-Hobáhib: [for] El-Hobáhib, or Aboo-Hobáhib, is said to have been a niggardly man, who never lighted any but a faint fire, fearing to attract guests, so that his fire became proverbial. El-Kumeyt says, describing swords, يَرَى الرَّاؤُونَ بِالشَّفَرَاتِ مِنْهَا كَنَارِ أَبِى حُبَاحِبَ وَالظُّبِينَا [The beholders see, in the sides of the blades thereof, and the extremities, the semblance of the fire of the fire-fly]: here the poet has made حباحب imperfectly decl., regarding it as a fem. [proper] name [of the fly above mentioned]. Or نارالحباحب and simply الحباحب signify The fire that is struck by a horse's hoofs: or the sparks of fire that are made to fly forth in the air by the collision of stones: or the sparks that fall from the pieces of wood that are used for producing fire [by means of friction]: or they are derived from حَبْحَبَةٌ, signifying “ weakness, ” [and their meaning is faint fire.]
2 أُمُّ حُبَاحِبٍ A flying insect resembling the [species of locust called] جُنْدَب, spotted with yellow and green: when people see it, they say, بَرِّدِى يَا حُبَاحِبُ [Spread forth thy wings (بُرْدَيْكِ), hobáhib]; whereupon it spreads its two wings, which are adorned with red and yellow.

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Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon

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