Arabic

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Root
م ح و (m ḥ w)
7 terms

Etymology

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Verbal noun of مَحَا (maḥā).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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مَحْو (maḥwm

  1. verbal noun of مَحَا (maḥā) (form I)
  2. (uncountable) wiping, erasure
  3. (uncountable) elimination

Declension

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Descendants

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  • Azerbaijani: məhv
  • Kurdish:
    Central Kurdish: مەفح (mefḧ)
  • Persian: محو (mahv)
  • Ottoman Turkish: محو (mahv)
  • Uzbek: mahv

Persian

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Arabic مَحْو (maḥw).

Pronunciation

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Readings
Classical reading? mahw
Dari reading? mahw
Iranian reading? mahv
Tajik reading? mahv

Noun

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محو (mahv)

  1. erasure, effacement, wiping away
    • c. 1520, Selim I of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Benedek Péri, The Persian Dīvān of Yavuz Sulṭān Selīm, Budapest, Hungary: Research Centre for the Humanities, Eötvös Loránd Research Network, →ISBN, page 115:
      تا نشد مردم چشمم برخت محو وفا
      دردمندانه بخلوتگه عزلت بنشست
      tā našud mardum-i čašmam ba-ruxat mahw-i wafā
      dardmandāna ba-xalwatgah-i uzlat binišast
      Until my eyes' pupils were erased of fidelity for your face,
      They sat painfully in a solitary place of seclusion.
      (Classical Persian transliteration)
  2. abolition, elimination
  3. absorption, fascination (to the point of eliminating one's sense of self)
    • 1177, Farīd ud-Dīn ʿAṭṭār, “The tale of the nightingale”, in منطق‌الطیر [The Conference of the Birds]‎[1]:
      من چنان در عشق گل مستغرقم
      کز وجود خویش محو مطلقم
      man čunān dar išq-i gul mustağraq-am
      k-az wujūd-i xwēš mahw-i mutlaq-am
      I am so drowned in love for the rose
      That I am absolutely erased from my own existence.
      (Classical romanization)
  4. (Sufism) absorption of the human self into God

Derived terms

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Further reading

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  • Hayyim, Sulayman (1934) “محو”, in New Persian–English dictionary, Teheran: Librairie-imprimerie Béroukhim