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رَحَبَةٌ ذ , (S, A, Mgh, Msb, K) and رَحْبَةٌ, (A, Mgh, Msb,) K,) the former of which is the more chaste, (A,) or the better, (Mgh,) or the more common, (Msb,) The court, open area, or spacious vacant part or portion, (S, A, Mgh, Msb, K,) of a mosque, (S, A, Mgh, Msb,) and of a house, (A, TA,) or of a place; (K;) so called because of its ampleness: (TA:) and in like manner, between, or among, houses: (A:) a desert tract, (Fr, Mgh, TA,) or a spacious vacant tract, (A,) or a spacious piece of ground, (Msb,) between, or among, the yards of the houses of a people: (Fr, Mgh, Msb, TA:) and sometimes thus is termed an enclosure, or a [kind of wide bench of stone or brick such as is called] دُكَّان, that is made at the doors of some of the mosques in the towns and the rural districts, for prayer: hence the saying of Aboo-'Alee Ed-Dakkák, [in which it means an enclosure outside the door of a mosque,] “ It is not fit that the حَائِض should enter the رحبْة of the mosque of a people, whether the رحبة be contiguous or separate: ” and hence, also, in a trad. of 'Alee, by the رحبة of El-Koofeh is meant a دُكَّان in the midst of the mosque of El-Koofeh, upon which he used to sit and to preach, and upon which he is related to have cast the spoils that he obtained from the people of En-Nahrawán: (Mgh:) pl. ↓ رَحَبٌ (S, Msb, K) and ↓ رَحْبٌ (K) [or rather these are coll. gen. ns. of which رَحَبَةٌ and رَحْبَةٌ are the ns. un.] and [the pl. is] رِحَابٌ and رَحَبَاتٌ (S, Msb, K) and رَحْبَاتٌ. (K.) ― -b2- Also, both words, An ample tract of land, that produces much herbage, and in which people alight, or abide, much, or often: (AHn, K:) pl. as above, accord. to the K; but accord. to IAar, رَحْبَةٌ signifies an ample tract of land; (TA;) and he says that its pl. is رُحَبٌ, like as قُرًى is pl. of قَرْيَةٌ: Az says that this occurs as an anomalous pl. of words of the defective class, and that he had not heard a word of the perfect class of the measure فَعْلَةٌ having a pl. of the measure فُعَلٌ; but that IAar is an authority worthy of reliance. (L, Msb.) And رَحَبَةُ الوَادِى, and رَحْبَتُهُ The part of the valley in which its water flows into it from its two sides: (K, TA:) pl. رِحَابٌ (TA.) [Or the pl.] رِحَابٌ signifies Plain, smooth, or soft, places, in which water collects and stagnates: they are the places where vegetation is most rapid, and are at the extremity of a valley, and in its middle, and sometimes in an elevated place, where water collects and stagnates, surrounded by what is more elevated: if in a plain tract of land, people alight and sojourn there: if in the interior of water-courses, people do not alight and sojourn there: if in the interior of a valley, and retaining the water, not very deep, and in breadth equal to a bow-shot, people alight and sojourn by the side thereof: رحاب are not in sands; but they are in low and in elevated tracts of land. (L.) ― -b3- The place of aggregation and growth of the plant called ثُمَام [i. e. panic grass]. (K, TA.) ― -b4- The place of grapes, (K,) [where they are dried,] like the جَرِين for dates. (TA.)
An Arabic-English Lexicon. London. Williams and Norgate. 1863.

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