دبابة

Tool noun from دَبَّ (dabba, “to crawl, to creep”).

• IPA^(key): /dab.baː.ba/

دَبَّابَة • (dabbāba) f (plural دَبَّابَات (dabbābāt))

1. tank, armoured vehicle
2. (historical) A kind of medieval siege engine designed to shelter men who are digging a hole in enemy fortifications
   • a. 1234, بهاء الدين ابن شداد [Bahāʔ ad-Dīn b. Šaddād], edited by Albert Schultens, النوادر السلطانية والمحاسن اليوسفية [The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin]‎^[1], Leiden: Samuel Luchtman, published 1732, Pars 1, Cap. 37, page 75:

     ولما تكاملت عنده آلات القتال من المناجنيق والدبابات والستائر وغير ذلك نازل عليها في ثاني وعشرين وضائقها وقاتلها قتالا عظيما

     Having finished erecting the machines of war, mangonels, crawlers and blinds and more he attacked it the twenty-second time, tightly in a rough clash.

3. anything that creeps; an animal that creeps or crawls
   • 1865 CE, Bible (SVD), Book of Genesis, 1:24:

     وَقَالَ اللَّٰهُ: «لِتُخْرِجِ الأَرْضُ ذَوَاتِ أَنْفُسٍ حَيَّةٍ كَجِنْسِهَا: بَهَائِمَ، وَدَبَّابَاتٍ، وَوُحُوشَ أَرْضٍ كَأَجْنَاسِهَا». وَكَانَ كَذَٰلِكَ.

     waqāla llāhu: “lituḵriji l-ʔarḍu ḏawāti ʔanfusin ḥayyatin kajinsihā: bahāʔima, wadabbābātin, wawuḥūša ʔarḍin kaʔajnāsihā”. wakāna kaḏālika.

     And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done.