سفر

Compare Akkadian 𒊭𒉺𒀸 (šapārum, “to send”).

• IPA^(key): /sa.far/

سَفَر • (safar) m (plural أَسْفَار (ʔasfār))

1. departure, journey, travel
2. campaign, military expedition

• Gulf Arabic: سفر (sifar)
• → Armenian: սափար (sapʻar), սաֆար (safar)
• → Azerbaijani: səfər
• → Kazakh: сапар (sapar)
• → Ottoman Turkish: سفر
  • Turkish: sefer
  • → Albanian: sefer
  • → Romanian: sefer
• → Persian: سفر
• → Swahili: safari
  • → Arabic: سَفَارِي (safārī)
  • → Catalan: safari
  • → English: safari
  • → Finnish: safari
  • → French: safari
    • → Romanian: safari
    • →? Turkish: safari
  • → German: Safari
  • → Hungarian: szafari
  • → Italian: safari
  • → Japanese: サファリ
  • → Portuguese: safári
  • → Russian: сафа́ри (safári)
  • → Spanish: safari
  • → Swedish: safari
• → Hindustani:

  Hindi: सफ़र (safar)

  Urdu: سفر

• → Punjabi: ਸਫ਼ਰ (safar)
• → Chagatai:

  Uyghur: سەپەر (seper)

  Uzbek: safar

• IPA^(key): /saf.fa.ra/

سَفَّرَ • (saffara) II (non-past يُسَفِّرُ (yusaffiru), verbal noun تَسْفِير (tasfīr))

1. to cause to journey, to put on board

• IPA^(key): /sa.fa.ra/

سَفَرَ • (safara) I (non-past يَسْفِرُ (yasfiru), verbal noun سَفْر (safr)) (archaic)

1. to strip, to remove, to sweep away, to carry off in every direction

• IPA^(key): /safr/

سَفْر • (safr) m

1. verbal noun of سَفَرَ (safara) (form I)

سَفَرَ • (safara) I (non-past يَسْفِرُ (yasfiru), verbal noun سُفُور (sufūr))

1. (intransitive) to unveil, to put away one's shroud
   • a. 1113, Al-Abīwardīy, وَسِربِ عَذارى مِن رَبيعَةِ عامِرٍ‎^[1]:

     وَقَد سَفَرَتْ عَنْ وَجْهِهَا فَتَمَزَّقَتْ

     waqad safarat ʕan wajhihā fatamazzaqat

     She removed her veil and got torn.

Terminology of the religious sphere, borrowed from Aramaic סִפְרָא (sip̱rā, “writing, book”) / ܣܷܦܪܴܐ (sep̱rā, “writing, book”); compare Biblical Hebrew סֵפֶר (sḗp̄er, “writing, book”). Ultimately from Akkadian 𒅆𒅁𒀸 (šiprum).

• IPA^(key): /sifr/

سِفْر • (sifr) m (plural أَسْفَار (ʔasfār))

1. verbal noun of سَفَرَ (safara, “to copy, to write”) (form I)
2. written book

   Synonym: كِتَاب (kitāb)

   • 609–632 CE, Qur'an, 62:5:

     مَثَلُ الَّذِينَ حُمِّلُوا التَّوْرَاةَ ثُمَّ لَمْ يَحْمِلُوهَا كَمَثَلِ الْحِمَارِ يَحْمِلُ أَسْفَارًا

     maṯalu llaḏīna ḥummilū t-tawrāta ṯumma lam yaḥmilūhā kamaṯali l-ḥimāri yaḥmilu ʔasfāran

     The example of those who were entrusted with the Torah and then did not take it on is like that of a donkey who carries volumes of books.

   • 1924, أمين الريحاني [ʔAmīn ar-Rīḥānī], “السيد الإدريسي – (٦) أديان وأشجان”, in ملوك العرب‎^[2], Windsor, United Kingdom: مؤسسة هنداوي [Hindawi Foundation], published 2021, →ISBN, page 185:

     وَجَدْتُهُ صَبَاحَ ٱلْعِيدِ جَالِسًا عَلَى ٱلْعَرْشِ مُعْتَمَّا بِعِمَامَةٍ هِنْدِيَّةٍ وَافِرَةٍ، طَوِيلَةِ ٱلذُّؤَابَةِ، بَاهِرَةِ ٱلْأَلْوَانِ، وَبِيَدِهِ سِفْرٌ إِنْكِلِيزِيٌّ فِي ٱلْفُطْرِيَّاتِ كَانَ يُتَرْجِمُهُ إِلَى ٱللُّغَةِ ٱلْهِنْدِسْتَانِيَّةِ.

     wajadtuhu ṣabāḥa l-ʕīdi jālisan ʕalā l-ʕarši muʕtammā biʕimāmatin hindiyyatin wāfiratin, ṭawīlati ḏ-ḏuʔābati, bāhirati l-ʔalwāni, wabiyadihi sifrun ʔinkilīziyyun fī l-fuṭriyyāti kāna yutarjimuhu ʔilā l-luḡati l-hindistāniyyati.

     On the feast in the morning I found him sitting on a throne in an opulent Indian turban, long in lappets, brilliant in colours, and in his hand an English book about the natural sciences he translated into Hindustani.

3. (Christianity, Judaism) a book of the Bible

   سِفْرُ ٱلْمُلُوكِ ٱلْأَوَّلُ ― sifru l-mulūki l-ʔawwalu ― the First Book of Kings

4. (archaic) trace, mark, writing

سَفَرَ • (safara) I (non-past يَسْفِرُ (yasfiru), verbal noun سِفْر (sifr))

1. (archaic) to copy, to scribe, to write

   Synonym: كَتَبَ (kataba)

• سَافِر (sāfir)

• IPA^(key): /safr/

سَفْر • (safr) m

1. mark, trace, vestige

• Freytag, Georg (1833) “سفر”, in Lexicon arabico-latinum praesertim ex Djeuharii Firuzabadiique et aliorum Arabum operibus adhibitis Golii quoque et aliorum libris confectum‎^[3] (in Latin), volume 2, Halle: C. A. Schwetschke, page 321
• Jeffery, Arthur (1938) “سِفْر”, in The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān (Gaekwad’s Oriental Series; 79), Baroda: Oriental Institute, pages 170–171
• Kazimirski, Albin de Biberstein (1860) “سفر”, in Dictionnaire arabe-français contenant toutes les racines de la langue arabe, leurs dérivés, tant dans l’idiome vulgaire que dans l’idiome littéral, ainsi que les dialectes d’Alger et de Maroc‎^[4] (in French), volume 1, Paris: Maisonneuve et C^ie, page 1097
• Lane, Edward William (1863-1893) “سفر”, in Arabic-English Lexicon, London: Williams & Norgate, page 1370.
• Steingass, Francis Joseph (1884) “سفر”, in The Student's Arabic–English Dictionary‎^[5], London: W.H. Allen, page 496
• Wehr, Hans (1979) “سفر”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN, page 481

Central Kurdish cardinal numbers

	۰	۱  >
Cardinal : سفر (sifr)

From Arabic صِفْر (ṣifr).

سفر (sifir)

1. zero; 0

Borrowed from Arabic سَفَر (safar, “journey, travel; campaign”).

سفر • (sefer) (definite accusative سفری (seferi), plural اسفار (esfâr))

1. travel, journey, voyage, trip, the movement of people between distant geographical locations

   Synonyms: سیاحت (seyâhat), یولجیلق (yolculuk)

2. (military) expedition, a military journey, an enterprise against some enemy or into enemy territory

   Synonym: سوقیات (sevkiyât)

3. (military) campaign, significant military strategy plans incorporating a series of related operations

   Synonym: حرب (harb)

4. time, occasion, instance, occurrence, one of a series of recurring cases, essentially the same

• Turkish: sefer
• → Albanian: sefer
• → Romanian: sefer

Borrowed from Arabic سِفْر (sifr, “written book”), from Aramaic סִפְרָא (sip̱rā, “writing, book”).

سفر • (sifr) (definite accusative سفری (sifri), plural اسفار (esfâr))

1. book, a collection of sheets of paper bound together to hinge at one edge, containing printed or written material, pictures, etc.

   Synonym: كتاب (kitâb)

2. (Judaism) Pentateuch, Torah, Books of Moses, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, traditionally attributed to Moses

• Turkish: sifr

Borrowed from Arabic سَفَر (safar). Cognate of English safari.

Readings
Classical reading?	safar
Dari reading?	safar
Iranian reading?	safar
Tajik reading?	safar

• Homophone: صفر (safar)

سفر • (safar)

1. travel

   من سفر هوائی را دوست ندارم.

   man safar havâ'i-râ dust nadâram.

   I don't like travelling by air.

2. trip
3. voyage
4. journey
5. expedition

• سفری (safari)
• سفر کردن (safar kardan)

Borrowed from Arabic سِفْر (sifr).

Readings
Classical reading?	sifr
Dari reading?	sifr
Iranian reading?	sefr
Tajik reading?	sifr

• Homophone: صفر (sefr)

سفر • (sefr)

1. book

De-emphaticization in urban Palestinian accents.

سفر • (sifr)

1. alternative form of صفر (ṣifr): zero

Borrowed from Classical Persian سفر (safar), from Arabic سَفَر (safar). Cognate of English safari.

• (Standard Urdu) IPA^(key): /sə.fəɾ/
• Rhymes: -əɾ
• Hyphenation: سَ‧فَر

سَفَر • (safar) m (Hindi spelling सफ़र)

1. travel, trip, journey, voyage

• “سفر”, in اُردُو لُغَت (urdū luġat) (in Urdu), Ministry of Education: Government of Pakistan, 2017.
• “سفر”, in ریخْتَہ لُغَت (rexta luġat) - Rekhta Dictionary [Urdu dictionary with meanings in Hindi & English], Noida, India: Rekhta Foundation, 2025.
• Qureshi, Bashir Ahmad (1971) “سفر”, in Kitabistan's 20th Century Standard Dictionary‎, Lahore: Kitabistan Pub. Co.

From Urdu سفر (safar).

سفر (safar)

1. travel, voyage
2. trip, journey
3. expedition