''Wāw rubba'' ( ar, وَاوُ رُبَّ) is a usage of the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

word ''wa'' ( ar, وَ). Whereas the usual use of ''wa'' is as a conjunction (meaning 'and'), the ''wāw rubba'' is used, particularly in poetry, in an exclamatory fashion to introduce a new subject. In English, it is sometimes known as the and'' of asseveration'.

Usage

''Wāw rubba'' is used to introduce a noun followed by a verb phrase. The noun in such a construction is always in the

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...

. Useful English translations include 'many a...', 'I remember...', 'I think of...', 'Oh, that...!' The construction is often used to mark a transition within a poem.

Examples

In his ''

muʿallaqa The Muʻallaqāt ( ar, المعلقات, ) is a group of seven long Arabic poems. The name means The Suspended Odes or The Hanging Poems, the traditional explanation being that these poems were hung in the Kaaba in Mecca, while scholars have also ...

'',

Imruʾ al-Qays Imruʾ al-Qais Junduh bin Hujr al-Kindi ( ar, ٱمْرُؤ ٱلْقَيْس جُنْدُح ٱبْن حُجْر ٱلْكِنْدِيّ, ALA-LC: ''ʾImruʾ al-Qays Junduḥ ibn Ḥujr al-Kindīy'') was an Arab king and poet in the 6th century, an ...

says:'wāw rubba', in Marlé Hammond, ''A Dictionary of Arabic Literary Terms and Devices'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) . This riddle on the

touchstone Touchstone may refer to: * Touchstone (assaying tool), a stone used to identify precious metals * Touchstone (metaphor), a means of assaying relative merits of a concept Entertainment * ''Touchstone'' (album), a 1982 album by Chick Corea * T ...

likewise begins with ''wāw rubba'', here rendered simply as 'someone':

Origin of name

''Wāw rubba'' takes its name from the letter '' wāw'', with which the word ''wa'' ('and') is written, and the word ''rubba'' (), meaning 'many'; thus the phrase ''wāw rubba'' means 'the ''wāw'' of many, the ''wāw'' equivalent in meaning to ''rubba'''. This name arises from the supposition that the ''wāw'' functions like the word ''rubba'', and moreover that this usage originated through phrases like ''wa-rubba rajulin'' (, 'and many a man') from which the word ''rubba'' was elided. However, in practice ''wāw rubba'' does not necessarily denote a multitude, nor is there evidence for extensive use of the sequence ''wa-rubba'' as opposed to ''rubba'' appearing on its own. While still conventional, then, the term ''wāw rubba'' can be viewed as a

misnomer A misnomer is a name that is incorrectly or unsuitably applied. Misnomers often arise because something was named long before its correct nature was known, or because an earlier form of something has been replaced by a later form to which the name ...

.W. Wright, ''A Grammar of the Arabic Language, Translated from the German Tongue and Edited with Numerous Additions and Corrections'', 3rd edn by W. Robertson Smith and M. J. de Goeje, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933 epr. Beirut: Librairie de Liban, 1996.

References

{{reflist Arabic words and phrases Arabic grammar