qobar
US/ˌkoʊˈbɑːɹ/
qobar 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).
Noun
qobar (plural not attested)
- 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).
- In Ethiopia, where it is called qobar, this haze is of extraordinary density and hides all the features of the landscape beyond the distance of a mile, and conceals stars of the third magnitude even in the zenith.1800, Report of the Board of Regents, volume 44, page 237
- Humboldt, viewing qobar in Peru, says […] . When travelling in Spain, Willkomm remarked qobar at a distance of 3 or 4 miles, yet, on reaching the actual spot, he saw nothing. […] Bravais saw qobar on the Faulhorn, when his hygrometer was at 51, air saturated with moisture marking 100. In Ethiopia...1889 January 3, Antoine d'Abbadie, in a letter to the editor of Nature, volume 39, pages 247-248
Examples of qobar in a sentence
- Humboldt, viewing qobar in Peru, says […] .1889 January 3, Antoine d'Abbadie, in a letter to the editor of Nature, volume 39, pages 247-248
- The callina of Spain and the qobar of the upper Nile region are probably due partly to this cause, and partly to dust.1922, Charles Fitzhugh Talman, Meteorology: The Science of the Atmosphere, page 96:
- Pietro Gandolfo, inside the old sedan, rumbled by, hidden by the dunes and the early morning qobar, dry fog of the Nile.2010, Charles Barnett, Iscariot, page 265:
Origin of qobar
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”).
Questions about qobar
- What does qobar mean?
- Qobar means 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).
- How do you use qobar in a sentence?
- Humboldt, viewing qobar in Peru, says […] .
- What part of speech is qobar?
- Qobar is a noun.
- How do you pronounce qobar?
- Qobar is pronounced /ˌkoʊˈbɑːɹ/ (US).
Words near qobar in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: qobar (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “qobar.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/qobar. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.