سالوس

• شَالُوس (šālūs)

In view of the variation between س (s) and ش (š) and the pattern which is not part of Arabic grammar, but Aramaic grammar and loans, we may be completely wrong to associate with سَلِس (salis, “pliant”) and the word will then by neither Arabic nor Iranian nor Greek. However the لُغَةُ السِّينِ (luḡatu s-sīni) of the Sāsānī Gypsies is known for being “a mixed language that takes the form of embedding a substitutive vocabulary into the grammatical structure of other languages” without independent grammar, a “para-language” with intentionally opaque patches (Richardson 2017 pp. 122, 138, 151). Coptic ⲥⲁⲗⲥⲗⲉ (salsle, “comfort, amusement”) is thus fitting enough. Otherwise see the obscure Greek σόλος (sólos, “a lump of iron used in throwing exercises”).

• IPA^(key): /saː.luːs/

سَالُوس • (sālūs) m

1. (obsolete, criminal slang) slick words, blandishment

• شَوْلَسَ (šawlasa, “to pull a confidence trick”)

• → Late Koine Greek: σαλός (salós, “fool”)
• → Classical Persian: سالوس (sālūs, “deceit; deceiver; deceitful”)

• Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (1976) The Medieval Islamic Underworld. The Banū Sāsān in Arabic Society and Literature. Part Two: The Arabic Jargon Texts: the Qaṣīda Sāsāniyyas of Abū Dulaf and Ṣafī d-Dīn, Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, page 231: “Dr. D.N. MacKenzie tells me that this word has no known Iranian etymology, and may accordingly be a loanword in Persian.”
• Richardson, Kristina (2017) “Tracing a Gypsy Mixed Language through Medieval and Early Modern Arabic and Persian Literature”, in Der Islam‎^[1], volume 94, number 1, →DOI, pages 115–157
• Shahîd, Irfan (1989) Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century, Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, page 268 fn. 173, where the Greek is declared to be possibly from Persian, obviously since the Arabic is found in no normal place

Borrowed from Arabic سَالُوس (sālūs).

سالوس • (sâlus)

1. (archaic) deceiver; hypocrite
2. deceit; hypocrisy