أشقر

Color or defect adjective from the root ش ق ر‎ (š-q-r). For the modern sense, compare the Spanish rubio (“fair-haired”) (from the Latin rubeus (“red”)).

• IPA^(key): /ʔaʃ.qar/
  • (Hejazi) IPA^(key): /ʔaʃ.ɡar/

أَشْقَر • (ʔašqar) (feminine شَقْرَاء‎ (šaqrāʔ), common plural شُقْر‎ (šuqr))

1. (modern, of hair) yellowish; fair, blond
   1. (modern, of a person) fair-haired, blond
2. (archaic or dated) yellow-red or yellow-brown; red-brown; coppery; tan, tawny; chestnut; sorrel; blood-red

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:ar:red

   1. (of a person or a complexion) swarthy; dark
      • 1290, Ibn Manẓūr, “ر”, in لسان العرب [The Tongue of the Arabs]‎, فصل الراء المهملة [The section of the undotted letter ر‎ (rāʔ)], page 421:

        ‏ابْنُ الْأَعْرَابِيِّ قَالَ : لَا تَكُونُ حَوْرَاءُ شَقْرَاءَ وَلَا أَدْمَاءُ حَوْرَاءَ وَلَا مَرْهَاءُ ، لَا تَكُونُ إِلَّا نَاصِعَةَ بَيَاضِ الْعَيْنَيْنِ فِي نُصُوعِ بَيَاضِ الْجِلْدِ فِي غَيْرِ مُرْهَةٍ وَلَا شُقْرَةٍ وَلَا أُدْمَةٍ وَلَا سُمُرَةٍ وَلَا كَمَدِ لَوْنٍ حَتَّى يَكُونَ لَوْنُهَا مُشْرِقًا وَدَمُهَا ظَاهِرًا .‎‎

        Ibn al-ʾAʿrābī said, "A ḥawrāʾ woman is not tawny-skinned, nor would a dark-skinned one be ḥawrāʾ, nor would a pale one. A ḥawrāʾ woman would have scleras as pure-white as the skin, with no paleness, nor tawniness, nor darkness, nor brownness, nor dullness in skin-tone, so that her skin is clear and her blood-flow is showing through."

• Lane, Edward William (1863), “أشقر”, in Arabic-English Lexicon, London: Williams & Norgate
• Wehr, Hans (1979), “أشقر”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN