Edward William Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, ث

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ثَمَانُونَ ثمانون a well-known noun of number; [meaning Eighty;] sometimes used as an epithet: ElAashà says, “ لَئِنْ كُنْتَ فِى جُبٍّ ثَمَانِينَ قَامَةً
وَرُقِّيتَ أَسْبَابَ السِّمَآءِ بِسُلَّمِ
” [Assuredly if thou wert in a well eighty fathoms deep, and wert made to ascend the tracts of heaven by a ladder]: he uses it thus as meaning deep. (TA. [But in this verse, as cited in the present art in the TA, أَبْوَابَ is put in the place of اسباب, which is the reading commonly known, and given in the S and TA in art. سب, and in the TA in art رقى-]) أَحْمَقُ مِنْ صَاحَبِ ضَأْنٍ ثَمَانِينَ [More stupid than an owner of eighty sheep], (S, K,) or مِنْ رَاعِى ضَأْنٍ ثَمَانِينَ [than a pastor of eighty sheep], as in some of the copies of the S, or, as in the Proverbs of Aboo-'Obeyd, مِنْ طَالِبِ ضَأْنٍ ثَمَانِينَ [than a demander of eighty sheep], (TA,) is a saying that originated from the fact that an Arab of the desert announced to Kisrà an event that rejoiced him, whereupon he said, “ Ask of me what thou wilt; ” and he asked of him eighty sheep. (S, K.) ― -b2- [It also signifies Eightieth.]