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حِمَارُ قَبَّانَ ذ [The wood-louse; thus called in the present day;] a certain insect, or small creeping thing; (S, O, K;) mentioned in art. حمر [q. v.]; (Msb;) also called عَيْرُ قَبَّانَ; (K;) a small, smoothish, blackish thing, the head of which is like that of the [beetle termed] خُنْفَسَآء, and long, and its legs are like those of the خنفسآء, than which it is smaller; and it is said that what is called عير قبّان is party-coloured, black and white, with white legs, having a nose like that of the hedge-hog; when it is moved, it feigns itself dead, so that it appears like a [small] globular piece of dung; but when the voice is withheld, it goes away: (M, TA:) MF says that the appellation عير قبّان is used only in poetry, in a case of necessity, for the sake of the metre; and is not mentioned in the lexicons of celebrity [except the K]. but it is mentioned in the M and the L: he says also that what is called حِمَارُ قَبَّانَ is said to be a species of the [beetles termed] خَنَافِس [pl. of خُنْفَسَآء] found between Mekkeh and El-Medeeneh: (TA:) [accord. to Dmr, it is a kind of six-footed insect, round, smaller than the black beetle, with a shield-shaped back, bred in moist places: (Golius:)] it is related on the authority of Jáhidh that one species thereof is called أَبُو شَحْمٍ, which is the small [species] thereof; and that the people of El-Yemen apply the appellation حمار قبّان to a certain insect, or small creeping thing, above the size of a locust, of the same sort as the فَرَاش [generally meaning moth]: in the Mufradát of Ibn-El-Beytár, it is said that what is called حمار قبّان is also called حِمَارُ البَيْتِ: the reason for the appellation [حمار قبّان] seems to be because its back resembles a قُبَّة: (TA:) قَبَّان in this case is of the measure فَعْلَان, from قَبَّ, (S, O, K,) because the Arabs imperfectly decline it, and they use it determinately; if it were of the measure فَعَّال, they would decline it perfectly; the pl. is حُمُرُ قَبَّانَ. (S, O.) -A2- قَبَّانٌ, syn. with قُسْطَاسٌ, see in art. قبن.
An Arabic-English Lexicon. London. Williams and Norgate. 1863.
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