بلس

A borrowing from probably Old South Arabian, found also in Amharic / Tigrinya / Tigre / Gurage / Ge'ez በለስ (bäläs, “fig”) which passed into Saho በለስ (balas) and Blin በለሳ (bäläsa) and hapax in the Amos 7, 14 Hebrew בֹּולֵס (bōlēs, “nipping the unripe sycomore to further its ripening”, active participle); no further cognates are known if not Egyptian nbs (“Ziziphus spina-christi tree and fruit”) compared by Koehler-Baumgartner.

• IPA^(key): /ba.las/, dialectally also IPA^(key): /bi.lis/ and IPA^(key): /bu.lus/

بَلَس • (balas) m (collective, singulative بَلَسَة f (balasa)) (Yemen)

1. fig (tree and fruit)
2. Indian fig, prickly pear (plant and fruit)

Elsewhere عَدَس (ʕadas), of which also Arabic عَلَس (ʕalas, “emmer”) is a variant.

• بُلْسُن (bulsun), بِلْسِن (bilsin)

• IPA^(key): /bu.lus/, /buls/, /bils/

بُلُس or بُلْس or بِلْس • (bulus or buls or bils) m (collective, singulative بُلُسَة f (bulusa) or بُلْسَة (bulsa) or بِلْسَة (bilsa)) (Yemen)

1. lentils

• →? Amharic: ምስር (məssər)
• → Ge'ez: ብርስን (bərsən)
• → Saho: birsin
• → Tigre: ብርስን (bərsən)
• → Tigrinya: ብርስን (bərsən), ብርሱን (bərsun), ብርሽን (bəršən)

• Dillmann, August (1865) “በለስ”, in Lexicon linguae aethiopicae cum indice latino (in Latin), Leipzig: T. O. Weigel, column 487
• Freytag, Georg (1830) “بلس”, in Lexicon arabico-latinum praesertim ex Djeuharii Firuzabadiique et aliorum Arabum operibus adhibitis Golii quoque et aliorum libris confectum‎ (in Latin), volume 1, Halle: C. A. Schwetschke, page 152a
• Guidi, Ignazio (1879) Della sede primitiva dei popoli semitici (in Italian), Rome: Tipi del Salviucci, pages 35–36
• Kazimirski, Albin de Biberstein (1860) “بلس”, in Dictionnaire arabe-français contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe, leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc‎ (in French), volume 1, Paris: Maisonneuve et C^ie, page 159b
• Lane, Edward William (1863) “بلس”, in Arabic-English Lexicon‎, London: Williams & Norgate, page 248b
• Leslau, Wolf (1991) “በለስ”, in Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic), 2nd edition, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, →ISBN, page 97
• Piamenta, Moshe (1991) Dictionary of Post-Classical Yemeni Arabic, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 38
• H1103 in Strong, James (1979) Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance to the Bible
• Vullers, Johann August (1855) “بلس”, in Lexicon Persico-Latinum etymologicum cum linguis maxime cognatis Sanscrita et Zendica et Pehlevica comparatum, e lexicis persice scriptis Borhâni Qâtiu, Haft Qulzum et Bahâri agam et persico-turcico Farhangi-Shuûrî confectum, adhibitis etiam Castelli, Meninski, Richardson et aliorum operibus et auctoritate scriptorum Persicorum adauctum‎ (in Latin), volume I, Gießen: J. Ricker, page 258
• Wahrmund, Adolf (1887) “بلس”, in Handwörterbuch der neu-arabischen und deutschen Sprache‎ (in German), volume 1, Gießen: J. Ricker’sche Buchhandlung, page 250b

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

• IPA^(key):

بَلَس (balas) ?

1. bird

• Bechtholdt, Astrid (2024) “balas”, in Burushaski Hunza Dictionary (Webonary), Dallas, Texas, USA: SIL International, published 2017.

بلس

1. Jawi spelling of belas‎