previous next
سَلْوَى ذ [accord. to those who make the alif to be a sign of the fem. gender] or سَلْوًى [accord. to those who make that letter to be one of quasicoordination] A certain bird, (S, M, Msb, K,) [in the present day applied to the quail,] i. q. سُمَانَى [which is also applied in the present day to the quail], (Ksh and Bd and Jel in ii. 54,) [or] white [?], resembling the سُمَانَى, (M,) or like the pigeon, but longer in the shank and neck than the latter, and of a colour resembling that of the سُمَانَى, quick in motion: accord. to Akh, the word is used as sing. and pl.: (Msb:) [or] Akh says, I have not heard any sing. thereof, and it seems that the single one is thus called like the pl. number, in like manner as دفْلَى is [said to be] applied to one and to the pl. number: (S:) or the n. un. is سَلْوَاةٌ; (M, K;) of which Lth cites as an ex. this saying, [in which بَلَّلَهُ should be بَلَّلَهَا,] “ كَمَا ا@نْتَفَضَ السَّلْوَاةُ بَلَّلَهُ القَطْرُ
” [Like as shakes the selwáh which the rain has much wetted]. (TA.) -A2- Also Honey; (S, M, K;) and so ↓ سُلْوَانَةٌ , with damm: (K:) the former is used in this sense by a poet, (S, M,) namely, Khálid Ibn-Zuheyr; and Zj says that Khálid has made a mistake, the word سلوى signifying only a certain bird; but, accord. to AAF, (M,) ― -b2- السَّلْوَى signifies [also] Whatever renders thee forgetful, or content, or happy, in a case of privation; (كُلُّ مَا سَلَّاكَ, M, K;) and honey is thus called because it renders thee thus by its sweetness. (M.)
An Arabic-English Lexicon. London. Williams and Norgate. 1863.

The U.S. Department of Education, The Max Planck Society provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide Dictionary Entry Lookup
Use this tool to search for dictionary entries in all lexica.
Search for in
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: