محو

Verbal noun of مَحَا (maḥā).

• IPA^(key): /maħw/

مَحْو • (maḥw) m

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

• → Azerbaijani: məhv
• Kurdish:

  → Central Kurdish: مەفح (mefḧ)

• → Persian: محو (mahv)
• → Ottoman Turkish: محو (mahv)
  • Turkish: mahv, mahıv
• → Uzbek: mahv

Borrowed from Arabic مَحْو (maḥw).

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 mustaġraq-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

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