| 释义 |
▪ I. Sabæan, Sabean, a. and n.|sæˈbiːən|
Also Sabaean.
[f. L. Sabæ-us, Gr. σαβαῖ-ος (f. Saba, σάβα, Arabic Saba' = Heb. Sh⊇bā, the ancient name of the people of Yemen; by Gr. and Roman writers imagined to be the name of the capital city) + -an.
In one passage (Isa. xlv. 14) the Eng. Bible, following the LXX and the Vulgate, uses Sabeans for the quite different tribal name S⊇bāīm. Another instance of this is in Ezek. xxiii. 42, but the marginal reading in 1611 is drunkards, which the Revised Version (1884) adopts in the text.]
A. adj. Of or belonging to the ancient population of Yemen in Arabia. In poetic use, often with allusion to the ancient renown of the spices brought from Yemen. Also, of or pertaining to the language of the Sabæans (see below B. b).
a1586Sidney Ps. xlv. iv, The fragrant riches of Sabean grove, Mirrh, Aloes, Cassia. 1623Massinger Bondman iv. iii, Whole Hecatombes or Sabæan Gums. 1698Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 115 Two skins of Sabæan Asses. 1700Dryden Cinyras & Myrrha 323 Sabæan Fields afford her needful Rest. 1830Tennyson Adeline v, Dripping with Sabæan spice On thy pillow. 1883I. Taylor Alphabet I. 345 The Himyaritic or Sabean Alphabet. 1886,1902[see Minæan n. and a.]. 1968[see Lihyanic n.]. 1974Encycl. Brit. Macropædia I. 620/1 The Sabaean offshoot, a graceful and elegant script consisting of 29 letters, spread into Africa, where it became the progenitor of the Ethiopic alphabet.
B. n.
a. One of the ancient inhabitants of Yemen.
1607Topsell Four-f. Beasts 239 The Sabeans by reason of continual vse of Mirrhe and Frankinsens, grow to a loathing of that sauour. 1611Bible Joel iii. 8 They shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people farre off.
b. The language of the Sabæans, a dialect of Old South Arabic.
1905G. Bell Let. 23 Feb. (1927) I. 196 A mass of rocks all covered with inscriptions..one..very like the oldest script of Yemen Sabaean. 1910J. Buchan Prester John xi. 183 It must have been some old sacred language—Phoenician, Sabæan, I know not what—which had survived in the rite. 1951[see Minæan n. and a.].
▪ II. Sabæan
erroneous form of Sabian. |