فَرَسٌ

[A horse; and a mare;] one of what are called خَيْلٌ; (M;) the name فرس is given to it because it crushes and breaks the ground with its hoofs; (A, O; *) and is applied to the male and the female; (S, M, A, Mgh, O, Msb, K;) but mostly applied to the latter; (M;) the female not being called ↓ فَرَسَةٌ; (S, O;) or the female is [sometimes] thus called: (Yoo, IJ, M, Msb, K:) it is applied also to the Arabian, (Mgh, Msb,) and to the Turkish, (Msb,) or that which is not Arabian: (Mgh:) or, according to Mohammad [the Hanafee Imám], to the Arabian only; but for this [says Mtr] I find no authority of a lexicologist, except that ISk, speaking of a solid-hoofed animal, says, “ whether it be a بِرْزَوْن or a فَرَس or a بَغْل or a حِمَار: ” (Mgh:) the plural is أَفْرَاسٌ, (S, M, Mgh, O, Msb, K,) [a plural of pauc. but used as a plural of mult. also,] and أَفْرُسٌ, [a plural of pauc. only,] (O,) and فُرُوسٌ: (K:) and as فَرَسٌ is originally feminine, you say ثَلَاثُ أَفْرَاسٍ when you mean males [as well as when you mean females]: (M:) or you say ثَلَاثَةُ أَفْرَاسٍ, with ة, when you mean males; and ثَلَاثُ أَفْرَاسٍ, without ة, when you mean females: (Msb:) the diminutive is فُرَيْسٌ, (S, O, Msb,) when applied to the male; (Msb;) and ↓ فُرَيْسَةٌ, when applied to the female; (S, O, Msb;) agreeably with rule; (Msb;) according to Aboo-Bekr Ibn-Es-Sarráj: (S, O:) or ↓ فُرَيْسٌ when applied to the female [also], which is extr. (Sb, M. [See حَرْبٌ.])

هُمَا كَفَرَسَىْ رِهَانٍ [They two are like two horses running for a wager] is a saying applied to two persons running a race to a goal, and being equal: (A, O, K:) the comparison relating to the beginning [of a contest], for the termination necessarily shows which outstrips; (O, K:) and to two who are equal, and two who are nearly equal, in excellence &c. (Har p. 640.) It was said by a man who swore that he would abstain from his wife for four months, and then divorced her: for the period during which a woman may be taken back after a [first or second] divorce is that of three menstruations or three periods of purity from menstruation; and if it ended in this case before the end of the four months during which he swore to abstain from her, she became separated from him by that divorcement: so he likened the two periods to two horses running for a wager. (O, * TA.)

فَرَسُ البَحْرِ (assumed tropical:) [The horse of the great river; i. e., of the Nile;] the hippopotamus. (Dmr. [See also عَصْبٌ.])

الفَرَسُ (assumed tropical:) A well-known constellation; so called because of its resemblance in form to a horse; (M;) [i. e.] الفَرَسُ الأَعْظَمُ (assumed tropical:) [The Greater, or Greatest, Horse;] the constellation Pegasus. (Kzw.)

قِطْعَةُ الفَرَسِ (assumed tropical:) [The Piece of the Horse;] the constellation Equuleus. (Kzw.)

الفَرَسُ التَّامُّ (assumed tropical:) [The Complete horse;] a certain constellation composed of thirty-one stars, in which a portion of the constellation called الفَرَسُ الأَعْظَمُ is included. (Kzw. [It is further described by him; but in a manner that does not enable me to identify it with any of the constellations named by our astronomers.])