| 单词 | empty quarter |
| 释义 | > as lemmasEmpty Quarter Empty Quarter n. (also with lower-case initials) the great deserts of the Arabian peninsula; esp. the Rub' al-Khali desert, extending from central Saudi Arabia southwards to Yemen and eastwards to the United Arab Emirates and Oman; also figurative. [Apparently after Arabic Rubʿa al-Ḵālī (apparently early 19th cent. or earlier; also Rubʿ al-Ḵālī; given in J. L. Burckhardt Trav. in Arabia (1829) II. 390 in the transliterated form Roba el Khaly as a name in use among the local Bedouins), apparently < rubʿ quarter (see arroba n.) + al- the + ḵālī empty, deserted, although it is possible that the original Arabic name may have been an (apparently unattested) form *rabʿ al-ḵālī, lit. ‘empty area’, with its first element being rabʿ (plural rubūʿ) area ( < rabaʿa to be seated, to dwell). Compare German Leeres Viertel (1841 or earlier; apparently after Arabic).] ΚΠ 1875 Encycl. Brit. II. 240/1 This greater desert, the ‘Roba El Khaliyeh’ or ‘Empty Space’ of geographers—the ‘Dahna’ or ‘Crimson’ of modern Arabs.] 1886 R. F. Burton tr. Arabian Nights' Entertainm. VII. dclxxiv. 80 Arab. ‘Ruba' al-Kharáb’ or ‘Ruba' al-Kháli’ (empty quarter), the great central wilderness of Arabia covering some 50,000 square miles and still left white on our latest maps. 1910 Encycl. Brit. II. 260/1 The great desert known as the Dahna or the Rub‘a el Khali (‘the empty quarter’). 1929 T. E. Lawrence Let. 12 July (1938) 663 They can pass over the Ruba el Khali, the so-called ‘Empty Quarter’ of Arabia. 1963 Guardian 5 July 8/3 While querying his map of the heart, one hails him as the Hakluyt of that empty quarter where the parched intellect croaks for a swig of feeling. 1997 T. Mackintosh-Smith Yemen (1999) ii. 29 North of the Wilderness of Abyan and across the dunes of Ramlat al-Sab'atayn, a finger of sand thrusting south-west from the Empty Quarter, is the most famous of them all. < as lemmas |
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