أَرْنَبٌ
1.
[The hare; and now applied to the rabbit also;] a certain animal, (TA,) well known, (M, A, K, TA,) like the
عناق [?], having short fore legs and long hind legs, that treads the ground with the hinder parts of its [hind] legs: (TA:) a certain very prolific animal, called in Pers.
خركوش [or خَرْGُوشْ]: it is said that it is one year a male and another year a female, and menstruates like women; and its fore legs are shorter than its hind legs: when it sleeps, it keeps its eyes open; and when it is sick, it eats green canes (قَصَب), and its sickness ceases: (Kzw:) the word is a gen. n., (TA,) of the feminine gender, (Msb, TA,) according to El-Jáhidh; (TA;) but (Msb) applied to the male and the female; (M, A, K, TA;) as is also
أَرْنَبَةٌ, (Msb,) which is a dialect var.: (Mgh, Msb:) or to the female [only]; the male being called خُزَزٌ; (T, M, K, TA;) according to Lth; but others allow its application to the male: (T:) the female is also called عِكْرِشَةٌ: and the young, خِرْنِقٌ: (TA:) the plural is أَرَانِبُ (T, S, M, Msb, K) and أَرَانٍ, (Lh, S, M, K,) the latter, like ثَعَالٍ for ثَعَالِبُ, occurring in poetry, (S, M, *) and not allowed by Sb except in poetry. (M.) The ا in أَرْنَبٌ is augmentative, according to Lth: according to most of the grammarians it is disjunctive, (so in a copy of the T and in the TA,) or radical: (so in another copy of the T:) Lth says that no word commences with a radical ا but such as is triliteral; as أَرْضٌ and أَرْشٌ. (T, TA.) [Hence,] one says of the low, abject, or ignominious, and weak, إِنَّمَا هُوَ أَرْنَبٌ [He is only a hare]; because that animal cannot defend itself, and even the lark will endeavour to make it its prey. (A, TA.) See another example below, voce أَرْنَبَةٌ. [Hence, also,] الأَرْنَبُ is the name of (assumed tropical:) A certain constellation, [Lepus,] comprising twelve stars in its figure, having no observed stars around it, situate beneath the feet of
الجَبَّار [i. e. Orion], and facing the west. (Kzw.)
2.
3.
الأَرْنَبُ
البَحْرِىُّ, according to Kzw, A certain marine animal, the head of which is like that of the
أَرْنَب [or hare], and the body like that of a fish: or, according to Ibn-Seenà, a small testaceous animal, which is of a poisonous quality when drunk [apparently meaning in water]: so that, according to this explanation, the resemblance [to the ارنب commonly so called] is in the name, not the form. (TA.)