ناهٍ
root: ن-ه-ي / form I active participle / definition: prohibitive
Under certain words in the dictionary, we find a list of their various usages—some collocations, some phrases.
ناهٍ—which is a form I active participle from a defective root, ن-ه-ي (hence the kasratayn ending)—is one example of this.
ناهٍ on its own means “interdictory”, “prohibitory”, or “prohibitive”, according to the Hans Wehr.
And under those definitions, the dictionary gives us several examples of ناهٍ with the addition of the object pronoun for “you”, كَ (giving us ناهيكَ):
ناهيك literally means “that which prevents you”, but effectively it’s like “this thing/person/example is sufficient to prevent you from looking for another example of it”—or, simply, “it is sufficient”.
We also see within the examples above that ناهيك من/عن can be translated as “let alone”, making it a synonym of بَلهَ which we explored in Wehr Wednesdays #31.
Have you had any interesting dictionary finds this week?
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