مَثَل
root: م-ث-ل / noun / plural: أَمْثال / definition: proverb
I almost completed writing an entirely different post to publish today, but it just didn’t feel like the right day to post it. That happens sometimes when I write posts, and I then store them in my drafts to publish another week, or I occasionally—with a slight feeling of guilt—leave them there untouched forevermore.
Anyway, I guess part of me wanted to write this post instead: a list of some proverbs you can find in the Hans Wehr dictionary.
So without further ado…
أَعَزّ مِن بَيض الأَنوق
literally: rarer than the eggs of a vulture
equivalent: scarcer than hen’s teeth
(basically, extremely rare)
أَبطَأ مِن غُراب نوح
literally: slower than Noah’s raven
equivalent: slower than a ten years’ itch
(i.e. super slow—note how this proverb has a similar structure to the previous one in that it begins with a comparative… and then has something about a bird)
لا يَعرِف الكوع مِن البوع
literally: he wouldn’t know his elbow from his metatarsal
equivalent: he wouldn’t know his knee from his elbow
(said of someone stupid—don’t we love a good rhyming proverb? The next one’s got a nice rhyme too)
حالَ الجَريض دونَ القَريض
literally: choking (on saliva) prevented poetry
equivalent: ?
(apparently, this proverb means that you don’t think about rhyming in the face of death… interesting)
رُبَّ رَميَةٍ مِن غَيرِ رامٍ
literally: many a shot is without a (skilled) marksman
equivalent: a broken clock is right twice a day (?)
(“of unexpected or undeserved success”)
ضَرَبَ/أَصابَ عُصفورَين بِحَجَر (واحِد)
literally: to hit (kill) two birds with one stone
equivalent: (same as the literal translation)
(a lot of bird-related proverbs in this list… I’m having flashbacks to Dictionary Finds: the Curious Case of the Question Mark)
عُصفور في اليَد خيرٌ مِن أَلف في الشَّجَرة
literally: a bird in the hand is better than a thousand in the tree
equivalent: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush
(another proverb that basically mirrors the English)
أَندَر مِن الغُراب الأَعصَم
literally: rarer than a white-footed crow
equivalent: scarcer than hen’s teeth
(…I really did think we had come to the end of the bird-related proverbs but I guess not—apologies to anyone with ornithophobia, it’s the dictionary, not me)
كُلّ الصَّيد في جَوفِ الفَراء
literally: there are all kinds of game in the belly of a wild ass
equivalent: (not a clue, to be honest)
(Wehr explains: “something or someone that combines all good qualities and advantages and makes everything else dispensable”)
اِستَنوَقَ الجَمَل
literally: he mistook the he-camel for a she-camel
equivalent: (is there an English equivalent for this one?)
(this one is proverbial for a mistake—استنوق is the form X verb derived from the root ن-و-ق, from which we also get the noun ناقة, “she-camel”)
Wrapping up this list, I’m reminded of the proverb we saw in Wehr Wednesdays #187, أَينَ الثَّرى مِن الثُّرَيّا, for which I also wasn’t sure there was a suitable English equivalent. And I guess not every proverb needs to have one.
Halfway through writing this, I remembered that I learnt some interesting Arabic proverbs during my master’s course. When I dig out those old notes, I think we might end up with another proverb post.
Do you know any other Arabic proverbs? Let us know in the comments!
!مع السلامة
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