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Etymological Dictionary of Arabic

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Click to Expand/Collapse OptionEtymArab
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SBL سبل 
ID … • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√SBL 
“root” 
▪ SBL_1 ‘path’ ↗¹sabīl
▪ SBL_2 ‘public fountain’ ↗²sabīl
▪ SBL_3 ‘clay pipe’ ↗³sabīl
▪ SBL_4 ‘ears (of cereals); to let hang down, let drop; mustache’ ↗sabal
▪ SBL_5 ‘manure, dung’ ↗sablaẗ
▪ SBL_ ‘…’ ↗

Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (acc. to BAH2008): ‘1 road, highway; 2 cause; 3a (of rain) to fall down in heavy showers, (of clothes) to be down to the ankles; 3b (of wheat) to put forth its ears’ 
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sabal سَبَل 
ID … • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√SBL 
n. 
ears (of cereals) – WehrCowan1979. 
▪ Given that the cultivation of cerials was not very common among pre-Islamic Arabs (while an old practice in the Fertile Crescent), the word sunbulaẗ is quite likely to be a borrowing, probably from Aram (as already suggested by Jeffery and recently confirmed by Pennacchio). In Sem outside Ar, there are forms showing ‑n‑ as well as others that don’t, as in Ar sabal. Kogan2011 therefore reconstructs protSem *šu(n)bul‑at‑ ‘ear of corn’.
▪ Cf. also ↗sunbulaẗ.
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ʔasbala, vb. IV, 1a to let (s.th.) hang down; 1b to let fall, drop (curtain, drape, etc., ʕalà over); 1c to close, shut (the eyes); 1d to shed (tears); 2 to ear, form ears: denom.

sabalaẗ, pl. sibāl, n.f., mustache: n.un., fig. use (?)
masbūl, adj., lowered, down: PP I (curtain) 
sablaẗ سَبْلة 
ID … • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√SBL 
n.f. 
manure, dung – WehrCowan1979. 
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sabīl سَبِيل , pl. ¹subul, ²ʔasbilaẗ, ³siblān 
ID … • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√SBL 
n. 
▪ sabīl_1 ‘way, road, path’ ↗¹sabīl
▪ sabīl_2 ‘public fountain’ ↗²sabīl
▪ sabīl_3 ‘clay pipe (bowl)’ ↗³sabīl 
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See ↗¹sabīl and ↗²sabīl
¹sabīl سَبِيل , pl. subul 
ID 378 • Sw 85 • BP 543 • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√SBL 
n.m/f. 
1a way, road, path; 1b access; 1c means, expedient, possibility (ʔilà to, for); – 2 ↗²sabīl. – 3 ↗³sabīl – WehrCowan1979. 
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▪ eC7 Occurs frequently in the Q, cf. ii, 102 ‘way, road’, then metaphorically, a ‘cause’, or ‘reason’.
▪ eC7 1 (highway, road) Q 15:76 wa‑ʔinnahā la‑bi‑sabīlin muqīmin ‘indeed they [the towns of the people of Lot and Midian] are on a highway remaining [till now]’; *Q 2:177 wa‑’bna ’l‑sabīli ‘and the wayfarer’; *Q 9:5 fa‑ḫallū sabīlahum ‘set them free [lit., release their way]’; *Q 4:34 fa‑lā tabġū ʕalayhinna sabīlan ‘then do not act against them in any way’; *Q 4:88 fa‑lan taǧida la‑hū sabīlan ‘you will never find for him a way out’; *Q 29:29 taqṭaʕūna ’l‑sabīla ‘you waylay travellers [lit., you cut off the highway]’; *Q 40:11 yaǧʕala ’llāhu lahunna sabīlan ‘God gives them another way out’; 2 (cause) Q 61:11 wa‑tuǧāhidūna fī sabīli ’llāhi bi‑ʔamwālikum wa‑ʔanfusikum ‘and you struggle for His cause with your possessions and your persons’; 3 (with def.art.: the right path, the power of reasoning, the ability to discriminate between good and evil, the way of God) Q 76:3 ʔinnā hadaynāhu ’l‑sabīla ʔimmā šākiran wa‑ʔimmā kafūran ‘We guided him to the [right] way; then he is either thankful or ungrateful’; 4 (way of this life) Q 80:20 ṯumma ’l‑sabīla yassarahū ‘the He enabled him to find a way’. 
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▪ Jeffery1938, 162: »In the Qurʔān it is used both of a road, and in the technical religious sense of ‘The Way’ (cf. Acts ix, 2), i.e. sabīl Allāh. The Muslim authorities take it as genuine Arabic, and Sprenger, Leben, ii, 66, agrees with them. It is somewhat difficult, however, to derive it from √SBL as even Rāġib, Mufradāt, 221, seems to feel, and the word is clearly a borrowing from the Syr šᵊḇīlā.1 As a matter of fact Hbr שׁביל and Aram שׁבילא mean both ‘road’ or ‘way of life’, precisely as the Syr šəḇīlā, but it is the Syr word which had the widest use and was borrowed into Arm as šawił,2 and so is the more likely origin. It occurs in the old poetry, e.g. in Nābigha v, 18 (Ahlwardt, Divans, p. 6), and thus must have been an early borrowing.«
EALL (Retsö, »Aramaic/Syriac Loanwords«3 ): loaned from Syr šḇīl.ā ‘way, path’.
▪ How are the meanings ‘way, path’ and ‘public fountain’ related? Are they? Are there connections to other items of the root √SBL?
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ĭbn al-sabīl, n., 1a vagabond, tramp; 1b wayfarer, traveler
fī sabīl…, prep., for the sake of, for, in behalf of, in the interest of
bi‑ \ʕan sabīl…, prep., by means of, through, by
fī sabīl allāh, expr., for the cause of God, in behalf of God and his religion
ʕalà sabīl…, prep., by way of, for: e.g., ʕalà sabīl al‑taǧribaẗ, for a try, tentatively, ʕalà sabīl al‑fukāhaẗ, for fun, ʕalà sabīl al‑miṯāl, to quote s.th. as an example
ḍāqat bihī ’l‑subul, expr., he was at his wit’s end
laysa ʕalayya fī ḏālika sabīl, expr., there is nothing to keep me from doing that, I am free to do that, it is no sin if I do that

sābil: ṭarīq sābilaẗ, n.f., a public, much‑frequented road
al-sābilaẗ, n.f., the passers-by: PA I, f.

 
²sabīl سَبِيل , pl. ʔasbilaẗ 
ID … • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√SBL 
n. 
1 ↗¹sabīl. – 2 (pl. ʔasbilaẗ) public fountain; – 3 ↗³sabīl – WehrCowan1979. 
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sabbala, vb. II, to dedicate to charitable purposes

 
³sabīl سَبِيل , pl. siblān 
ID … • Sw – • BP – • APD … • © SG | 15Feb2021
√SBL 
n. 
1 ↗¹sabīl. – 2 ↗²sabīl. – 3 (pl. siblān) clay pipe bowl, clay pipe (of the Bedouins) – WehrCowan1979. 
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