Arabic, Arabick

& s. [In Eng. Arab, -ic; Ger. Arabisch; Fr. Arabique; Port. Arabico; Lat. Arabic us.] A. As adjective: Pertaining to Arabia, or to the language prevailing there. "What way was there taken for spreading his [Pocock's] Arabick translation of Grotius de Veritate Religion is Christ i ane?" - Worthing ton to Hartlib, Epist. 7. "Gum arabic, or gum acacia, is an exudation from various species of acacia."- Treas . of Bot . (ed. 1866), ii. 5. B. As substantive: The language of Arabia or of the Arabs. It is properly the dialect of the Kore i shite tribe in Arabia, rendered cla ic by its being the language in which the Koran was composed. It is now vernacular in Arabia, Egypt, and Northern Africa, and the learned and sacred tongue of all Mohammedan countries. The numbers who at present speak it have been estimated at 100 millions, which is probably an exaggeration. Philologically viewed, Arabic is the most southerly of the Syro-Arabian family of languages, besides being itself the type of one of the three cla es into which that leading family of tongues is divided. A ociated with it in this relation are the living Amharic and the dead Ethiopic and Himyaritic tongues. About two-thirds of the Hebrew roots occur with slight modification in Arabic, which renders the language useful to the Biblical student, as its wide diffusion does to the mi ionary; while numerous chemical, alchemical, astronomical, and strological words which arose during the briliant, but brief, period when the Saracens aimed at intellectual as well as political ascendancy, will always render it an object of interest to scientific men. The Arabic literature is posterior in date to the time of Mohammed. "That Schultens had from the Arabick happily and satisfactorily illustrated some very obscure and difficult words of the Hebrew text,."- Park hurst : Heb. Lex., Pref. * Arabic numerals: The first nine digits1, 2, 3, . and the cipher used in writing the number 10. Though often called Arabic, they are really of Brahmanic origin. [NuMERALS.]