qobar
/ˌkoʊˈbɑːɹ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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).
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
From Ge'ez ቆባረ (ḳobarä, “darkness, blackness; fog, mist, dust”), from ቆበረ (ḳobärä, “become black, dark, or foggy”), 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. Wolf Leslau alternatively speculated that it is "perhaps related" to Arabic كفر (kifr, “darkness of the night”) from the root ك ف ر (k f r, “conceal”).
Word Breakdown
- Root: -
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌkoʊˈbɑːɹ/