Bibliotheca Polyglotta

▪ ḥāfir is a PA I (FāʕiL) of ↗ḥafara ‘to dig’ and thus means, lit., *‘the digger / digging one’. It is so called »as though it [a horse, mule, ass, etc.] dug the ground by reason of the vehemence of its tread upon it« (Lane ii 1865).

hist

▪ …

cogn

See ↗ḥafara, ↗√ḤFR.

disc

▪ See above, section CONC.

west

…

deriv

waqaʕa ’l-ḥāfir ʕalà ’l-ḥāfir, expr., to coincide, happen to correspond exactly.
ʕalà ’l-ḥāfir, adv., on the spot, right away, at once (of payments): proverbial, meaning »the payment in ready money is on the occasion of the first sentence spoken by the seller, when he says ‘I have sold to thee (such a thing)’. The origin of the saying was this: horses were the most excellent and precious of the things that they [sc., the Arabs] possessed; and they used not to sell them on credit: a man used to say the words above to another, meaning that its [the horse’s] hoof should not remove until he received its price« – Lane ii 1865.

ḥāfirī, adj., ungular, ungulate: nisba formation from ḥāfir ‘hoof’.
ḥāfiraẗ, n.f., original condition, beginning: lit. referring to the situation immediately after a deal, when the sold/bought animal is not to be removed until its price has been paid, i.e., when it is still ‘digging’ | ʕinda ’l-ḥāfiraẗ, adv., on the spot, right away, at once: see ʕalà ’l-ḥāfir, above; raǧaʕa ʔilà ḥāfiratih, expr., to revert to its original state or origin.

For other values of the root, cf. ↗ḥafara, ↗ḥafr, ↗ḥafraẗ gafraẗ, as well as, for the general picture, ↗√ḤFR.

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