Etymograph

English

qobar

Qobar comes from Ge'ez ቆባረ ‘darkness, blackness’, and goes back to ቆበረ.

  1. Ge'ezmodernቆበረ1ḳobärä‘become black, dark, or foggy’
  2. Ge'ezmodernቆባረ1ḳobarä‘darkness, blackness’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1800qobar1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English qobar
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1800, Report of the Board of Regents: “In Ethiopia, where it is called qobar, this haze…”.

Lineage

  1. Ge'ezmodernቆበረWiktionary, English qobarḳobärä‘become black, dark, or foggy’
  2. Ge'ezmodernቆባረWiktionary, English qobarḳobarä‘darkness, blackness’
  3. Englishearliest quotation 1800qobarWiktionary, English qobar. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1800, Report of the Board of Regents: “In Ethiopia, where it is called qobar, this haze…”

The story

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”).disputed Scholars disagree here; the competing view is quoted as the source gives it.

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Every English word from Ge'ez ቆበረ

Today it means

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).

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “qobar”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Ge'ez ቆበረ / qobar

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