شَوَّالٌ

The tail of the scorpion. (TA. [So called because often raised.])

Also, (S, O, Msb, K,) and sometimes it is called الشَّوَّالُ, (Msb,) The month of the festival of the breaking of the fast; (Msb, K; *) the month next after رَمَضَان; (TA;) the first of the months of the pilgrimage; (S, O;) [the tenth month of the lunar year:] as some assert, (IDrd, O,) so called because [when first thus named] it coincided with the season when the she-camels [being seven or eight months gone with young] raised their tails: (IDrd, O, Msb, TA:) [for the camels generally couple in winter:] or because of their milk becoming then withdrawn; such being the case with the camels in the time of vehement heat and of the coming to an end of the juicy fresh herbage: [see a table of the months voce زَمَنٌ:] the Arabs used to regard the making of marriage-contracts in this month as of evil omen; and to say that the woman [then] married would resist him who married her, like as the she-camel resists the stallion and raises her tail; but the Prophet abolished their thus auguring, and he married 'Áïsheh in this month: (TA:) the plural is شَوَّالَاتٌ and شَوَاوِيلُ (S, Msb, K) and شَوَاوِلُ, this last formed by rejecting the augmentative letter [in the second]. (TA.)