Classical Arabic - English Dictionary

by Edward William Lane (1801-1876)

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سخب سخبر سخت


سَخْبَرٌ / سَخْبَرَةٌ

سَخْبَرٌ A certain kind of trees, (Ṣ, Ḳ,) the heads of which, when it grows tall, bend and hang down; [a coll. gen. n.;] n. un. with ة {سَخْبَرَةٌ}: (TA:) it resembles the إِذْخِر; (Ḳ;) or it is like the ثُمَام [or panic grass], and has a [root such as is termed] جُرْثُومَة; its branches, or twigs, are, in abundance, like the كراث [app. كَرَاث, a certain large tree, growing on the mountains]; and its fruits resemble brooms of reeds, or are more slender: (AḤn:) serpents make their abodes at its roots. (TA.) It is related in a trad. of Ibn-Ez-Zubeyr, that he said to Mo'áwiyeh, لَا تُطْرِقْ إِطْرَاقَ الأُفْعُوَانِ فِى أُصُولِ السَّخْبَرِ [Do not thou look down upon the ground like as does the male viper at the roots of the sakhbar]; meaning † do not thou affect heedlessness of the state in which we are, or of the affair in which we are engaged. (TA.) One says also, رَكِبَ فُلَانٌ السَّخْبَرَ, meaning, † Such a one acted perfidiously, treacherously, or unfaithfully. (Ṣ.) And a poet says,

* وَالغَدْرُ يَنْبُتُ فِى أُصُولِ السَّخْبَرِ *

[And perfidy grows at the roots of the sakhbar]: (Ṣ:) [because the viper lives there: or] the poet means, that the people of whom he speaks dwelt in places where the sakhbar grew; and they are thought to have been of the tribe of Hudheyl: IB says that he likens the perfidious to this tree because, when it is full-grown, its head hangs down, not remaining erect; and that he means, ye do not remain faithful, like as this tree does not remain in one state. (TA.)


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