qobar

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English

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Etymology

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From Ge'ez[1][2] ቆባረ (ḳobarä, “darkness, blackness; fog, mist, dust”), from ቆበረ (ḳobärä, “become black, dark, or foggy”),[3] which Antoine d'Abbadie said derives from the root ق ب ر (q b r, “bury”), because it "buries" the landscape and obscures the stars.[2] Wolf Leslau alternatively speculated that it is "perhaps related" to Arabic كفر (kifr, “darkness of the night”)[3] from the root ك ف ر (k f r, “conceal”).[4][5]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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qobar (plural not attested)

  1. (rare) A dry fog or dry haze, chiefly of the upper Nile but rarely also elsewhere, which has a brownish-yellow color when slight (sometimes only perceptible from a distance) and darker yellow-grey color when thicker (sometimes obscuring the landscape and blotting out the stars).
    • 1800, Report of the Board of Regents, volume 44, page 237:
      In Ethiopia, where it is called qobar, this haze is of extraordinary density and hides all the features of the landscape beyond the distance of a mile, and conceals stars of the third magnitude even in the zenith.
    • 1889 January 3, Antoine d'Abbadie, in a letter to the editor of Nature, volume 39, pages 247-248:
      Humboldt, viewing qobar in Peru, says […] . When travelling in Spain, Willkomm remarked qobar at a distance of 3 or 4 miles, yet, on reaching the actual spot, he saw nothing. [...] Bravais saw qobar on the Faulhorn, when his hygrometer was at 51, air saturated with moisture marking 100. In Ethiopia, where I have observed it so low as 20, the hygrometer's mean reading was 41 when qobar was conspicuous. Above 72 it disappeared.
    • 1922, Charles Fitzhugh Talman, Meteorology: The Science of the Atmosphere, page 96:
      Under the head of dry fog many writers include a sort of heat haze, which does not necessarily involve the suspension of either solid or liquid matter in the air, but is due to the mixing of local air currents of different densities, especially when evaporation is proceeding rapidly from moist ground under strong sunshine. The callina of Spain and the qobar of the upper Nile region are probably due partly to this cause, and partly to dust.
    • 2010, Charles Barnett, Iscariot, page 265:
      Pietro Gandolfo, inside the old sedan, rumbled by, hidden by the dunes and the early morning qobar, dry fog of the Nile. He fidgeted nervously. He had no idea what to expect ahead.

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Frank H. Vizetelly, A Desk-book of Twenty-five Thousand Words Frequently Mispronounced (1919), page 709, at the start of section Q, gives the pronunciation as "kōʺbɑ̄rʹ¹, kōʺbärʹ²", where the superscript numbers indicate the two systems of transcription, the keys to which explain that the pronunciation amounts to IPA(key): /ˌkoʊˈbɑːɹ/.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Antoine d'Abbadie, in a 1889 January 3 letter to the editor of Nature, volume 39, pages 247-248
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Wolf Leslau, Comparative Dictionary of Geʻez (Classical Ethiopic) (1987, →ISBN)
  4. ^ John Richardson, A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic, And English (1829): "كفر kafr, Covering, hiding, concealing. [...] Obscurity, the darkness of the night. Any place remote from habitation. A sepulchre. [...] Kifr, Darkness of the night."
  5. ^ Francis Johnson, A Dictionary, Persian, Arabic and English (1852), page 1015: "كفر kafr, Covering, hiding, concealing, enveloping. Relapsing into infidelity. [...] The grave. Earth, dust. [...] Obscurity, the darkness of the night. Any place remote from habitations. Kifr, Darkness of the night."
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