أَعْفَرُ

Dust-coloured inclining to white; of a whitish dust-colour: (TA:) or white, but not of a clear hue: (Msb:) or, applied to a buckantelope, white, but not of a very clear white, (AZ, As, S, O, K,) being like the colour of the surface of the earth: (AZ, As, Mgh:) or a buck-antelope having a tinge of red over his whiteness, (AA, S, A, K,) with a short neck; and such is the weakest of antelopes in running: (AA, S, O:) or having a redness in his back, with white flanks: (K:) [in the CK, after the words thus rendered, is an omission, of the words أَوِ الأَبْيَضُ وَ:] or such as inhabits elevated, rugged, stony tracts, and hard grounds; and such is red: (AZ:) or having white horns: (A:) feminine عَفْرَاءُ: (S, K, &c.:) also applied to a she-goat, meaning of a clear white colour: (TA:) plural عُفْرٌ. (S, A, O.)

El-Kumeyt says,

وَكُنَّا إِذَا جَبَّارُ قَوْمٍ أَرَادَنَا

بِكَيْدٍ حَمَلْنَاهُ عَلَى قَرْنِ أَعْفَرَا

[And we used, when an insolent tyrant of a people desired to execute against us a plot, to carry him upon the horn of an antelope of a whitish dustcolour, or white but not of a clear hue, &c.]; meaning, we used to slay him, and to carry his head upon the spear-head; for the spear-heads, in time past, were of horns. (S, O.)

Hence the saying رَمَانِى عَنْ قَرْنِ أَعْفَرَ i. q. رمانى بِدَاهِيَةٍ (tropical:) [He sent upon me a calamity; or he made a very crafty man to be my assailant]: for the same reason, also, قَرْنُ أَعْفَرَ is proverbially used to signify (tropical:) A difficulty, or distress, that befalls one: and one says to a man who has passed the night in disquieting distress, كُنْتَ عَلَى قَرْنِ أَعْفَرَ (tropical:) [Thou wast pierced by grief]. (TA.) One says also, of him who is frightened and disquieted, كَأَنَّهُ عَلَى قَرْنِ أَعْفَرَ [He is as though he were upon the horn of an antelope of a whitish dustcolour, &c.: meaning, upon the head of a spear]: the like of this phrase is used by Imra-el-Keys. (A.)

Also عَفْرَاءُ, A ewe of a colour inclining to whiteness. (O.)

And أَعْفَرُ, Red sand. (S, O.)

[Food of the kind called] ثَرِيد made white: (K, TA:) from عُفْرَةٌ signifying the “ colour of the earth. ” (TA.)

عَفْرَاءُ White. (K.)

أَرْضٌ عَفْرَاءُ Untrodden land. (K, TA.)

العَفْرَاءُ The thirteenth night [of the lunar month]: (S, O:) or the night of blackness: (A:) but according to IAar, اللَّيَالِى العُفْرُ signifies the white nights; (A;) and so says Th, without particularizing: (TA:) or the nights thus called are the seventh and eighth and ninth nights of the lunar month; (K;) because of the whiteness of the moon [therein]. (TA.) It is said in a tradition لَيْسَ عُفْرُ اللَّيَالِى كَالدَّادِيءِ The moon-lit nights are not like the black nights: some say that this is a proverb. (TA.)