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شَرِيفٌ ذ High, elevated, exalted, or eminent, (S, O, * Msb, K, TA,) [in rank, condition, or estimation,] in respect of religion or of worldly things: (TA:) [generally meaning high-born, or noble:] possessing glory, honour, dignity, or nobility: or such, and having also [such] ancestry: (TA:) [using it as not implying highness, or nobility, of ancestry,] you say, هُوَ شَرِيفٌ اليَوْمَ [He is high, or noble, to-day], and عَنْ قَلِيلٍ ↓ شَارِفٌ as meaning one who will be شَرِيف [after a little while]: (Fr, S, K:) the pl. [of pauc.] is أَشْرَافٌ and [of mult.] شُرَفَآءُ (S, O, Msb, K) and ↓ شَرَفٌ , so in the K, app. denoting that this last is one of the pls. of شريف, and it is said in the O that شَرَفٌ is syn. with شُرَفَآءُ; but in the L it is said that it is syn. with شَرِيفٌ; and hence the saying هُوَ شَرَفُ قَوْمِهِ meaning He is the شَرِيف of his people, and كَرَمُهُمْ meaning the كَرِيم of them; and thus it has been expl. as used in a trad.: (TA:) [but both these assertions are probably correct; for it seems to be, agreeably with analogy, an inf. n. used as an epithet, and therefore applicable to a single person and to a pl. number, and also to two persons, and likewise to a female as well as to a male.] ― -b2- [By the modern Arabs, and the Turks and Persians, it is also applied, as a title of honour, to Any descendant of the Prophet; like سَيِّد. And, with the article ال, particularly to the descendant of the Prophet who is The governor of Mekkeh; now always a vassal of the Turkish Sultán.]
An Arabic-English Lexicon. London. Williams and Norgate. 1863.
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