ساف

From سَوْفَ (sawfa, future tense marker).

According to Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou the bird-name from an Egyptian compound term the second part of which is found in Coptic ϣⲁϥ (šaf, “desert, wasteland”); the bird-spotter’s observations motivating him to name the animal by the future marker, or secondarily by the terms derived from it, are left to speculation.

• (verb): IPA^(key): /saː.fa/
• (noun): IPA^(key): /saːf/

سَافَ • (sāfa) I (non-past يَسُوفُ (yasūfu), verbal noun سَوْف (sawf)) (obsolete)

1. to smell, to explore by odour
2. to hunt
3. to endure with patience
4. to perish, to die

سَاف • (sāf) m (plural سَافَات (sāfāt) or سِيفَان (sīfān))

1. (Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, al-Andalus) sparrowhawk
   • 2010 June 25, “مهرجان «الساف» يضع بلدة الهوارية التونسية المغمورة تحت الأضواء”, in Ar-Riyāḍ‎:

سَاف • (sāf) m (plural سَافَات (sāfāt) or آسُف (ʔāsuf)) (obsolete)

1. layer, row, series
   • a. 1165, ابن التلميذ , edited by Oliver Kahl, The Dispensatory of Ibn At-Tilmīḏ الأقراباذين الكبير (Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science. Texts and Studies; 70), Leiden: Brill, published 2007, →ISBN, page 136 Nr. 290:

     يؤخذ سمسم مقشور مخلوع غير مقلى مجفف ويجعل في كيس كرباس جديد ساف سمسم وساف زهر بنفسج منقى مقطوع الساق غير مبلول لا كثير التندية فيعفن ولا قليلها بل متوسط

     Take properly peeled unroasted dried sesame, put a layer of it into a new bag of cotton, and (another) layer of clean stalkless unrinsed violet flowers which do not (contain too) much natural) moisture—then they become mouldy—and not (too) little but rather in between;

• Corriente, Federico, Pereira, Christophe, Vicente, Angeles, editors (2017), Dictionnaire du faisceau dialectal arabe andalou. Perspectives phraséologiques et étymologiques (in French), Berlin: De Gruyter, →ISBN, page 673
• Ibn Ḵātima (a. 1369) “Un document nouveau sur l’arabe dialectal d’Occident au XII^e siècle = إيراد اللآل من إنشاد الضوال ”, in G. S. Colin, editor, Hespéris‎, volume 12, number 1, published 1931, page 28
• Lane, Edward William (1863) “ساف”, in Arabic-English Lexicon‎, London: Williams & Norgate, page 1469c