Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ SLB_1 ‘to take way, steal, rob, plunder, loot’ ↗salaba
▪ SLB_2 ‘to put on or wear mourning, be in mourning’ ↗saliba
▪ SLB_3 ‘negative’ ↗salbī
▪ SLB_4 ‘spoils\hide, shanks and belly of a slaughtered animal’ ↗²salab
▪ SLB_5 ‘ropes, hawsers’ ↗EgAr ³salab
▪ SLB_6 ‘method, way, manner, mode, style’ ↗ʔuslūb

Other values, now obsolete, include (Hava1899, Lane iv 1872, Wahrmund1887):

▪ ^†SLB_7 : ^†ʔaslaba, vb. IV, ‘to lose its leaves (tree)’, ^†sallabat and ^†ʔaslabat, vb. II/IV (f.), ‘to become deprived of one’s young one (she-camel); to lose one’s child (woman)’
▪ ^†SLB_8 : ^†¹salib, adj., ‘light, active, quick’; ^†ĭnsalaba, vb. VII, ‘to walk quickly, go at a very quick pace (horse, camel)’
▪ ^†SLB_9 : ^†²salib, adj., ‘long, tall’
▪ ^†SLB_ 10 : ^†²salaba, vb. I, ‘rohe Seide spinnen’, ^†²salb, n., ‘gesponnene Rohseide | (LevAr) spun silk’
▪ ^†SLB_11 : ^†silb, n., ‘Pflugsterz | plough-handle, (Lane:) the longest thing of the apparatus of the plough, piece of wood that is joined to the base of the […] ploughshare, its end being inserted in the hole\perforation of the latter’
▪ ^†SLB_12 : ^†⁴salab, n., ‘bark of reeds; tree-fibres’
▪ ^†SLB_13 : ^†⁵salab, n., ‘kind of hyacinth’
▪ ^†SLB_14 : LevAr ^†⁶salab, n., ‘moorings’
▪ ^†SLB_15 : ^†ʔuslūb, n., ‘neck of a lion | cou du lion’
▪ ^†SLB_16 : LevAr ^†salbīn? al-ḥimār, n., ‘cotton-thistle’
▪ ^†SLB_ : ‘…’

♦ Semantic value spectrum in ClassAr (accord. to BAH2008): ‘to strip, peel off; to plunder, carry off by force; a row of palm trees, road’

▪ SLB_1 : Accord. to Ehret1989 #21 an extension in »finitive fortative« * b from a 2-rad. pre-protSem root ↗*SL ‘to draw out or off’,¹ preserved in Ar ↗salla ‘to draw out slowly’ (for other such extensions, see below, section DISC). – In contrast, MilitarevKogan2005 (SED I) CXIV reconstruct protSem *šlṗ ‘to draw, pull out, unsheathe’. Dolgopolsky2012 #2058 has Sem *√Š|SLB ~ *√ŠLP < Nostr *śal˅b˅ ‘to cut out, pull out’. – Most of the values assembled in the root √SLB seem to go back to a basic *‘drawing out, taking away, depriving s.o. of s.th.’ (see below, section DISC).
▪ SLB_2 : The value ‘to put on or wear mourning, be in mourning’ is based on [v1] ‘to take away, strip, deprive s.o. of s.th.’, either (as in BK1860) 1 être privé d’un member de sa famille, et de là 2 porter le deuil’ or (as in Lane iv 1872 for tasallaba, vb. V) ‘to abstain from the wearing of ornaments, and the use of perfumes, and dye for the hands &c., and put on the garments of mourning’.
▪ SLB_3 salbī ‘negative’: < [v1] *‘to take away, strip, deprive of’: cf. (BK1860) ^†¹salab ‘absence de tout rapport entre les choses; absence de telles ou telles qualités ou attributs’
▪ SLB_4 ²salab ‘spoils\hide, shanks and belly of a slaughtered animal’: accord. to Lane (iv 1872) »[apparently] so called because given to the slaughterer, as though they were his spoil; or, in the case of an animal of the chase, to the dog/s«, i.e., from [v1] *‘to take away, strip, deprive of’; one may also think of an original meaning of *‘what is drawn out (sc. of the slaughtered animal)’.
▪ SLB_5 EgAr ³salab ‘ropes, hawsers’; cf. also ^†salabaẗ, n.f., ‘string\cord that is tied to the muzzle\nose of the camel; sinew that is bound upon an arrow’: prob. based on ^†[v12] ^†⁴salab ‘bark of reeds; tree-fibres’, esp. perh. ^†[v13] ^†⁵salab ‘kind of hyacinth’ (prob. identical with ^†[v16] ^†salbīn (al-ḥimār) ‘cotton-thistle’); ultimately prob. related to [v1] *‘to take away, strip, deprive of’, as the fibres from which the ropes\hawsers are twisted are ‘taken out’ of the plant. – From ³salab is also ^†²sallāb, n., ‘seller\manufacturer of ropes or baskets made of ³salab’.
▪ SLB_6 ʔuslūb ‘method, way, manner, mode, style’: In addition to the modern meanings, there is (Hava1899 and others) also the older ‘road’ as well as (Lane iv 1872, BadawiAbdelHaleem2008) ^†‘row of palm-trees’. Lane thinks the latter »is app[arently] the primary signification, as seems to be indicated by its occupying the first place in the TA [Tāǧ al-ʕArūs]«. – Relations to the large ‘[v1] and derivatives’ complex cannot be excluded but would be difficult to prove; perh. either from *‘way of twisting ropes’ (↗SLB_5) or *‘way of (cleverly) getting away with s.th.’ (↗SLB_1). For more details see section DISC in entry ↗ʔuslūb.

▪ ^†SLB_7 : The common denominator in all these items is *‘to lose, be deprived of’, i.e., a derivation from [v1] ‘to take away s.th. from s.o., deprive s.o. of s.th.’: ‘to lose its leaves (tree)’, ‘to become deprived of one’s young one (she-camel); to lose one’s child (woman)’; cf. also the quasi-PP I, ^†²salīb, adj./n. ‘woman whose husband has died [see v2]; she-camel\gazelle despoiled\deprived of her young one’.
▪ ^†SLB_8 : Accord. to ClassAr lexicographers as quoted by BK1860 or Lane iv 1872, the meaning ‘light, active, quick’ of the adj. ^†¹salib can be explained as dependent on [v1] * ‘to take away, take off, deprive’, cf., e.g., vb. VII ĭnsalabat-i l-nāqaẗᵘ ‘the she-camel went so quick a pace that she was as though she went forth from her skin, or she outstripped’ (Lane iv 1872), ^†salib ‘léger et agile, dégourdi, dégagé ou qui dégage et lance facilement qc’ (BK1860). According to Lane, a vb. I belonging to ^†¹salb ‘going\journeying, lightly and quickly (Lane); quick step (Hava)’ is not mentioned in the lexica; cf., however, the iḍāfa adj./n.s ^†salib al-yadayn ‘qui a de l’adresse dans les mains, qui travaille vite | light-handed’, and ^†(faras) salib al-qawāʔim ‘swift runner | cheval dégagé des jambes, rapide à la course’. – In Wahrmund1887, [v8] ‘light, active, quick’ is regarded as one with [v9] ‘long, tall’ (see below).
▪ ^†SLB_9 : ^†²salib, adj., ‘tall | (BK1860:) long, particulièrem. lance très-longue’: prob. identical with (extended meaning from ^†¹salib, see preceding item). Wahrmund1887 has ‘langgestreckt und leicht’, combining [v8] and [v9].
▪ ^†SLB_10 : LevAr ^†²salb ‘spun silk’ and the corresponding vb. I, ^†²salaba ‘rohe Seide spinnen’ (Wahrmund1887) are prob. special usage of [v5] ³salab ‘ropes, hawsers’ < [v12] ‘bark of reeds; tree-fibres’, esp. perh. ^†[v13] ‘kind of hyacinth’/^†[v16] ^†salbīn (al-ḥimār) ‘cotton-thistle’), ultimately prob. related to [v1] *‘to take away, strip, deprive of’ (see above).
▪ ^†SLB_11 : The etymology of ^†silb ‘plough-handle’ remains obscure so far.
▪ ^†SLB_12 : Accord. to Lane iv 1872, ^†⁴salab means »[particularly] the bark\rind of a kind of tree, well known in El-Yemen, of which ropes [see v5] are made, and which is coarser and harder than the fibres of the Theban palm-tree; hence it is that a well-known kind of [thick] rope [made of the fibres of the common palm-tree] is called by the vulgar salabaẗ; bark of a kind of tree of which are made [baskets of the kind called] silāl [↗sallaẗ]; there is a market called sūq al-sallābīn [see v5, above] in El-Medeeneh […] , as being the market [of the sellers, or manufacturers, of what are made] of salab; […] accord. to Forskål (Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica, […]) this name is applied in El-Yemen to a species of hyacinth, which he terms hyacinthus aporus]«. If these data are reliable we may assume that [v5] ‘ropes, hawsers’ is from [v12] ‘bark of reeds; tree-fibres’, esp. perh. ^†[v13] ‘kind of hyacinth’/^†[v16] ‘cotton-thistle’), ultimately prob. related to [v1] *‘to take away, strip, deprive of’ (see above), because in the fabrication process, fibres needed for twisting a rope are isolated (*‘drawn out’) from the plant.
▪ ^†SLB_13 : The ^†⁵salab ‘kind of hyacinth’ is prob. the plant the fibres of which are used to twist the [v5] type of ropes, cf. LandbergZetterstéen1942: »salab est aussi le nom d’une plante, Sanseviera Ehrenbergii² (Hyacinthus aporus, Forsk[ål], Lane [et al.]), dont les feuilles contiennent des fibres [↗v12], employées pour la fabrication de cordes [↗v5], […] et c’est pourquoi ce mot est usité dans le sens de ‘cordes | Stricke’ (Schäfer, Lieder eines ägypt. Bauern n° X, 1,3 […]).«
▪ ^†SLB_14 : Is Lev^†⁶salab ‘moorings’ dependent on [v5] ‘ropes, hawsers’?
▪ ^†SLB_15 : The value ‘neck of a lion’ of ^†ʔuslūb is prob. some kind of metaphorical usage, but how would it be derived? Obscure semantics.
▪ ^†SLB_16 : LevAr ^†salbīn? al-ḥimār ‘cotton-thistle’ is, with all likelihood, identical with [v13], i.e., the ‘kind of hyacinth’ that is prob. the plant the fibres of which are used to twist the [v5] type of ropes.
▪ …

1. So also Landberg/Zetterstéen1942: »salaba, de √SL, ‘tirer dehors’«. 2. Identified in en.wiki with Dracaena hanningtonii, (…) (blue sansevieria, sword sansevieria, oldupai, or East African wild sisal).

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▪ 1 MilitarevKogan2005 (SED I) CXIV and Dolgopolsky2012 #2058: Akk šalāpu ‘to draw from a sheath, tear out, pull out, rescue’ (from oBab on); Hbr šālap ‘to pull out, pull off, take out’; JudAram šlp ‘to loosen, pull, draw’, TargAram √ŠLP G ‘to loosen, pull, draw’, JEAram √ŠLP G ‘to pull off\out, remove, draw’, ChrPalAram √ŠLP G ‘to draw from a sheath’, SamAram √ŠLP G ‘do.; to remove’, Syr šlap ‘extraxit, evellit’, Mnd šlp ‘to pull out, draw out, extract, unsheath, pluck out’ ~ Ar salaba ‘arracher qc de vive force a qn; voler, piller qn; tirer, extraire (le sabre du fourreau) | to carry off forcibly, plunder’; (?) Sab s₃lb ‘to draw water improperly (?)’; Gz salaba ‘to take off, strip off, take away, remove, deprive, take spoils, plunder’, Te sälbä ‘to castrate’, saläbä ‘to rob, snatch away’, Tña säläbä ‘evirare; disarmare nemici in guerra’, Amh sälläbä ‘to castrate, evirate; to take away s.o.’s property by sorcery’, End Sel Wol säläbä, Muh Msq Gog Sod sälläbä ‘to castrate a man’; Mhr səlūb ‘to disarm s.o., take s.o.’s arms by force, steal s.o.’s arms’, Hrs selōb ‘to disarm; to abort (camel)’, Jib. sɔ́lɔ́b ‘to take (s.o.’s gun) by force’.
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▪ SLB_1 : MilitarevKogan2005 (SED I) CVI: »The first treatment of irregular correspondences between p and b in various Semitic languages is [Barth ES 23-9]. Among the most convincing of Barth’s etymologies are Hbr and Syr pšṭ vs. Ar bsṭ [↗basaṭa] ‘to spread’; Hbr parʕōš, Syr purtaʕnā vs. Ar ↗burġūṯ ‘flea’; Hbr JudAram šlp vs. Ar and Gz slb ‘to draw’, etc. Adducing these and other examples, most of them convincing, Barth makes an important observation: in most cases, p is found in NSem (esp. Hbr) and b in SSem (incl. Ar). Barth suggests no explanation for this peculiar phenomenon, but his examples and ideas constitute a foundation for later scholars, some of whom have suggested that the apparent irregularity may reflect a protSem emphatic ṗ. […]« – Based on the Sem evidence, Dolgopolsky2012#2058 reconstructs protSem *√Š|SLB ~ *√ŠLP; on account of what he believes to be extra-Sem cognates, he even postulates Nostr *śal˅b˅ ‘to cut out, pull out’.
▪ SLB_1 : According to Ehret1989, other extensions from the same 2-rad. pre-protSem root basis ↗*SL ‘to draw out or off’ include ↗salaʔa, ↗salata, ↗salaḥa, ↗salaḫa, ↗saliʕa, ↗salafa, ↗salaqa. – Most of the values assembled in the root √SLB seem to go back to the basic notion of *‘drawing out, taking away, depriving of s.th.’: [v2] ‘to put on or wear mourning, be in mourning’ is prob. orig. *‘to be deprived of one’s husband’ or from *‘to abstain from dressing nicely, wearing ornaments, etc. (as a sign of mourning)’; [v3] ‘negation; negative’ is from *‘to be deprived of all attributes’; [v4] ‘spoils\hide, shanks and belly of a slaughtered animal’ is *‘what is drawn out’; [v5] ‘ropes, hawsers’ seem to be *‘fibers taken out (from a certain plant, see v12/13/16) and twisted’ (hence perh. also the LevAr ^†v14 ‘moorings’); [v7] assembles several types of *‘depravation’: losing leaves, a child or young one, clothes, one’s senses, or taking away one’s life; ^†[v8] ‘light, active, quick’ is explained in ClassAr dictionaries as metaphorical use, from *‘running to fast that it seems as if one left one’s skin behind’ (hence prob. also ^†[v9] ‘long, tall’); ^†[v10] ‘to spin raw silk; spun silk’ is with all likelihood a LevAr specialisation of [v5] ‘ropes, hawsers’, which seems to be based on ^†[v12] ‘bark of reeds; tree-fibres’, esp. ^†[v13] ‘kind of hyacinth’, which in turn is prob. identical with ^†[v16] ‘cotton-thistle’. – The only values that are problematic to assign to the *’taking out/away, depravation’ etymon are [v6] ‘method, way, manner, mode, style’, ^†[v11] ‘Pflugsterz | plough-handle’ and ^†[v15] ‘neck of a lion’.
▪ SLB_2 : cf. also ^†silāb, n., ‘mourning clothes of a woman’; cf. also ^†²salīb, adj./n. (quasi PP I) ‘woman whose husband has died’
▪ …
▪ ^†SLB_10 : Cf. Landberg/Zetterstéen1942: »En Syrie salaba a aussi pris le sens de ‘filer la soie écrue’; de là salb ‘soie filée’«.
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salab‑ سَلَب , u (salb)

ID - • Sw … • BP … • APD … • © SG | 4Feb2022, last updated 6Jul2022

√SLB

vb., I

1a to take away, steal, wrest, snatch (s.o., min s.th.), rob, strip, dispossess, deprive (s.o. min of s.th.); b to plunder, rifle, loot; c to strip of arms and clothing (‑h a fallen enemy); 2 to withhold (2x DO s.th. from s.o.), deny (s.o. s.th.) – WehrCowan1976

▪ Accord. to Ehret1989 #21, salaba is an extension in »finitive fortative« * b from a 2-rad. pre-protSem root ↗*SL ‘to draw out or off’,³ preserved in Ar ↗salla ‘to draw out slowly’ (for other such extensions, see below, section DISC). For other extensions from the same 2-rad. pre-protSem root see ↗salaʔa, ↗salata, ↗salaḥa, ↗salaḫa, ↗saliʕa, ↗salafa, ↗salaqa.
▪ MilitarevKogan2005 (SED I) cxiv reconstruct protSem *šlṗ ‘to draw, pull out, unsheathe’. Dolgopolsky2012 #2058 has Sem *√Š/SLB ~ *√ŠLP < Nostr *śal˅b˅ ‘to cut out, pull out’.
▪ Most of the values assembled in the root √SLB prob. go back to a basic *‘drawing out, taking away, depriving s.o. of s.th.’. Thus, ↗saliba ‘to put on or wear mourning, be in mourning’ is prob. orig. *‘to be deprived of one’s husband’ or from *‘to abstain from dressing nicely, wearing ornaments, etc. (as a sign of mourning)’; salb ‘negation’ (↗salbī ‘negative’) is from *‘to be deprived of all attributes’; ↗²salab ‘hide, shanks and belly of a slaughtered animal’ is *‘what is drawn out’ (from the animal after slaughtering); ↗³salab ‘ropes, hawsers’ seems to be a semantic extension from *‘fibers taken out (from a certain plant, see ↗SLB_12/13/16) and twisted’. For other derivations, now obsolete, see root entry ↗SLB.
▪ …
▪ Landberg/Zetterstéen1942: In DaṯAr, the vb. I salab has taken the sense of ‘to arm o.s.’, sc. with the salab (pl. ʔaslāb) ‘arms’ plundered from the enemy.
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3. So also Landberg/Zetterstéen1942: »salaba, de √SL, ‘tirer dehors’«.

▪ eC7 (to plunder, snatch away, rob, carry off) Q 22:73 wa-ʔin yaslubu-humu ḏ-ḏubābu šayʔan lā yastanqiḏū-hu min-hu ‘and if the flies rob them of something, they can not rescue it from them’.
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▪ See above, section CONC.
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NB: Only ‘direct’ derivations are given here. For others, see above, section CONC, and cross-referenced items at the end of this section.

►ĭstalaba, vb. VIII = salaba: Gt-stem, self-ref.

►^BP#3392salb, n., 1 spoliation, plundering, looting, pillage, robbing; 2 negation | ʕalāmaẗ al-salb, minus sign (math.): vn. I.
►^BP#1236salbī, adj., 1 negative (also el.); 2 passive: from salaba or ↗saliba? | difāʕ salbī, muqāwamaẗ salbiyyaẗ, passive resistance
►salbiyyaẗ, n.f., negativism, negative attitude: abstr. formation in iyyaẗ, based on salbī.
►salab, pl. ʔaslāb, n., 1 loot, booty, plunder, spoils; 2 ↗²salab; — 3 ↗EgAr ³salab
►¹sallāb, n., robber, plunderer, looter: ints. formation / n.prof.
►¹salīb, adj., stolen, taken, wrested away: quasi-PP I.
►ĭstilāb, n., spoliation, plundering, looting, pillase, robbing: vn. VIII.
►sālib, adj., negative; (pl. sawālibᵘ), n., negative (phot.): PA I.
►maslūb, adj., unsuccessful: PP I.

For other meanings attached to the root, cf. ↗saliba, ↗salbī, and ↗ʔuslūb, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√SLB.

salib‑ سَلِبَ , a (salab)

ID - • Sw … • BP … • APD … • © SG | 24Mar2022, last updated 7Jul2022

√SLB

vb., I

to put on or wear mourning, be in mourning – WehrCowan1976

▪ The value ‘to put on or wear mourning, be in mourning’ is based on ↗salaba ‘to take away, strip, deprive s.o. of s.th.’, either (as in BK1860) 1 être privé d’un member de sa famille, et de là 2 porter le deuil’ or (as in Lane iv 1872 for tasallaba, vb. V) ‘to abstain from the wearing of ornaments, and the use of perfumes, and dye for the hands &c., and put on the garments of mourning’.
▪ For the etymology of the underlying salaba see ↗s.v.
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▪ …
▪ …

▪ No direct cognates in Sem. For cognates of underlying salaba see ↗s.v.
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▪ See above, section CONC.
▪ Cf. also ^†silāb, n., ‘mourning clothes of a woman’ and ^†²salīb, adj./n. (quasi PP I) ‘woman whose husband has died’.
▪ …

–

►tasallaba, vb. V, to be in mourning: Dt-stem, self-ref.

►silāb, pl. sulub, black clothing, mourning (worn by women)

For other meanings attached to the root, cf. ↗salaba, ↗salbī, ↗²salab, ↗EgAr ³salab, and ↗ʔuslūb, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√SLB.

salbī سَلْبِيّ

√SLB

adj.

1 negative (also el.); 2 passive – WehrCowan1976

▪ From ↗salaba ‘to take away, strip, deprive of’, cf. (BK1860) ^†¹salab ‘absence de tout rapport entre les choses; absence de telles ou telles qualités ou attributs’.
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▪ …
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▪ See ↗salaba.
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▪ See above, section CONC.
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►difāʕ salbī, n., and muqāwamaẗ salbiyyaẗ, n.f., passive resistance

►salbiyyaẗ, n.f., negativism, negative attitude: abstr. formation in iyyaẗ
►sālib, adj., negative; (pl. sawālibᵘ), n., negative (phot.): PA of obsol. vb. I.
►maslūb, adj., unsuccessful: PP of obsol. vb. I.

For other meanings attached to the root, cf. ↗salaba, ↗saliba, ↗²salab, ↗EgAr ³salab, and ↗ʔuslūb, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√SLB.

²salab سَلَب

√SLB

hide, shanks and belly of a slaughtered animal – WehrCowan1979

▪ Accord. to Lane iv 1872, ²salab ‘spoils\hide, shanks and belly of a slaughtered animal’ is »[app(arently)] so called because given to the slaughterer, as though they were his spoil; or, in the case of an animal of the chase, to the dog/s«, i.e., from ↗salaba ‘to take away, strip, deprive of’. One may also think of an original meaning of *‘what is drawn out (sc. of the slaughtered animal)’.
▪ For the etymology of salaba see ↗s.v.
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▪ …
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▪ ↗salaba.
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▪ See above, section CONC.
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–

For other meanings attached to the root, cf. ↗salaba, ↗saliba, ↗salbī, ↗EgAr ³salab, and ↗ʔuslūb, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√SLB.

EgAr ³salab سَلَب

√SLB

n. (coll.)

ropes, hawsers – WehrCowan1976

▪ The value ‘ropes, hawsers’ for the n. salab is marked as specifically »EgAr« in WehrCowan, but as the ClassAr attestation in Lane iv 1872 (see below, section HIST) shows, it is prob. more widespread.
▪ ³salab is with all likelihood based on the obsol. ^†⁴salab ‘bark of reeds; tree-fibres’ (i.e., ^†SLB_12 in root entry ↗SLB), esp. perh. the fibres of (^†SLB_13) ^†⁵salab, a ‘kind of hyacinth’, which in turn is prob. identical with (^†SLB_16) ^†salbīn (al-ḥimār) ‘cotton-thistle’, i.e., the material from which the ropes\hawsers were produced.
▪ Ultimately, all the above are prob. related to ↗salaba ‘to take away, strip, deprive of’, as the fibres from which the ropes\hawsers are twisted are ‘taken out’ of the plant.
▪ …

▪ ^†salabaẗ, n.f., ‘string\cord that is tied to the muzzle\nose of the camel; sinew that is bound upon an arrow’ – Lane iv 1872.
▪ From ³salab is also ^†²sallāb, n., ‘seller\manufacturer of ropes or baskets made of ³salab’.
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▪ No direct cognates. For the prob. underlying salaba see ↗s.v.
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▪ See above, section CONC.
▪ Prob. related are also the obsol. (^†SLB_10) LevAr ^†²salb ‘spun silk’ and the corresponding vb. I, ^†²salaba ‘rohe Seide spinnen’ (Wahrmund1887); cf. Landberg/Zetterstéen1942: »En Syrie salaba a aussi pris le sens de ‘filer la soie écrue’; de là salb ‘soie filée’«.
▪ …

For other meanings attached to the root, cf. ↗salaba, ↗saliba, ↗salbī, ↗²salab, and ↗ʔuslūb, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√SLB.

ʔuslūb أُسْلُوب , pl. ʔasālībᵘ

√SLB

1a method, way, procedure; b course; c manner, mode, fashion; d style (esp. literary); e stylistic peculiarity (of an author) – WehrCowan1976

▪ Etymology obscure, perh. either *‘way of twisting ropes’ (↗³salab ‘ropes, hawsers’) or *‘way of (cleverly) getting away with s.th.’ (↗salaba ‘to take away, steal, wrest, snatch’). See below, section DISC.
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▪ No obvious cognates.
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▪ The etymology of ʔuslūb ‘method, way, manner, mode, style’ is rather unclear. As there are no obvious foreign terms on which the word could have been modelled, it seems to be genuine Ar. Accord. to Barth1894: 225, the morphological pattern ʔuFʕūL on which ʔuslūb is formed, has almost no parallels outside Ar either.
▪ In ClassAr dictionaries, ʔuslūb is attested also with several other meanings. Most lexica have ‘road’ as a more concrete value than the modern abstract ‘method, mode, style’. Both Lane iv 1872 and BadawiAbdelHaleem2008 also register the meaning ^†‘row of palm-trees’ which Lane thinks »is app[arently] the primary signification, as seems to be indicated by its occupying the first place in the TA [Tāǧ al-ʕArūs]«. Based on this remark, one may feel tempted to assume a development along the line *‘row of palm-trees > row > road, way > way of doing things, method’. Such a development is not attested, however, nor would the assumption solve the question of the origin of the value ‘row of palm-trees’.
▪ Apart from the above values, there are at least five others to be found in the ClassAr lexica, none of them however providing unambiguous hints as to the word’s etymology. Accord. to DHDA, ʔuslūb is first attested (in a Huḏaylī poem, dated pre-581 CE) as ‘type of tree, growing symmetrically and becoming high, among the plants that give the best material for twisting ropes’. Here, ʔuslūb seems to be close in meaning, or even identical with, the type of plant (a hyacinth, sansiveria, or cotton-thistle, East African wild sisal) mentioned s.v. ↗³salab ‘ropes, hawsers’. Based on this evidence, a hypothetical line of semantic development could be *‘sansiveria type of plant > fibres of this plant > to twist ropes/hawsers from these fibres > way of twisting ropes/hawsers > way, method’, hence also ‘literary style’, as *‘way of “twisting” words/sentences’. Not unconceivable. – Lane iv 1872 registered also a f. var.,ʔuslūbaẗ , meaning ‘a certain game of the Arabs of the desert, or some action that they perform among them; one says bayna-hum ʔuslūbaẗ “among them is a performance of what is termed ʔuslūbaẗ”’. As the type of game or performance is not specified, no conclusions can be drawn from this data either. However, one could imagine that the activity had s.th. to do with ↗salaba ‘to take away, steal, wrest, snatch, rob, strip, etc.’, in which case ʔuslūb(aẗ) would originally mean the methods of *‘(playfully) snatching s.th. from an opponent, trying to strip the opponent of s.th. (arms, clothing, etc.)’. Not unconceivable either, esp. in light of the fact that some SLB items show a connection to the idea of legerity, quickness, nimbleness, for instance, ^†¹salib ‘light, active, quick’. – Yet another older/extinct meaning of ʔuslūb is (BK1860) ‘toute la longueur du nez’; to this, we should perh. put (due to its length or being stretched out?) the ‘neck of the lion (Lane iv 1872) | cou du lion (BK1860)’. If the modern ʔuslūb should be connected to this notion of ‘length, extension’, the explanation would be in line with Gabal2012: 1079 who interprets ʔuslūb as »any extended way/road’ (kull ṭarīq mumtadd), in this way building a bridge to the above-mentioned ‘row of palm-trees’. – Lane iv 1872 has also ‘aperture of a watering-trough\tank through which the water flows’, but this seems to be a contamination (or misreading?) from ↗sallaẗ, now mostly ‘basket’, but also attested as ‘(Hava1899:) chink in a tank, (Lane iv 1872:) fault\defect in a watering-trough or in a jar, breach, fissures in the ground that steal the water’.
▪ In all the above cases, a semantic relation between modern ʔuslūb ‘method, way, manner, mode, style’ and the most productive general root meaning *‘to draw out, take away, deprive s.o. of s.th.’ (see ↗SLB and ↗salaba) can only be established with big caveats.
▪ …

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►ʔuslūb kitābī, n., literary style

For other meanings attached to the root, cf. ↗salaba, ↗saliba, ↗salbī, ↗²salab, and ↗EgAr ³salab, as well as, for the overall picture, root entry ↗√SLB.

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