arab

plural arabs

1. Indiararebillion (sense 1); 1,000,000,000; or with Indian digit grouping, 1,00,00,00,000.

1. not comparableOf or pertaining to Arabs and their nations.

   1 more example

   The dispatches […] also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies. Having lectured the Arab world about democracy for years, its collusion in suppressing freedom was undeniable as protesters were met by weaponry and tear gas made in the west, employed by a military trained by westerners.

   2013 June 7, Gary Younge, “Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, archived from the original on 26 Aug 2022, page 18

   Synonyms: Arabic

plural Arabs

1. A member of the Semitic ethnic group native to the Arabian Peninsula.
2. An Arabic-speaking person from anywhere in the Middle East and North Africa.

   This backlash also fails to take into account that Israel, for all its faults, is a multicultural society where almost half of graduating doctors today are Arabs or Druze.

   2023 October 29, Thomas L. Friedman, “Please, Israel, Don’t Get Lost in Hamas’s Tunnels”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 11 Nov 2023

3. uncommonAn Arabian horse.

   Having taken a very early breakfast, I mounted about eight o'clock my grey Arab, and without anything occurring worthy of note, killed the first three boars in the space of an hour, […]

   1887, Edward B. Baker, Sport in Bengal: and How, When, and where to Seek it, page 61

4. archaicA street Arab.

   a. 1892, Charles Spurgeon, a sermon You Christian people often see the little gutter children — the poor little arabs in the street — and you feel much pity for them, as well you may.

   1 more example

   The other day I heard you complaining of the nuisance that small ragged street-boys are to you whenever you go out. […] You wished that some one would do something to clear away these little Arabs, as you are pleased to call them, so that a fine old English gentleman—as you are pleased to think yourself—might take his exercise in peace.

   1866, Punch, page 225

   Synonyms: Ayrab, woolly-head, sand nigger

1. A city in Marshall County, Alabama, United States.
2. datedrareThe Arabic language.

   Tarzan, who, by this time, with the assistance of Abdul, had picked up quite a smattering of Arab, questioned one of the younger men who had accompanied the sheik while the latter paid his respects to Captain Gerard.

   1913 June–December, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Numa ‘El Adrea’”, in The Return of Tarzan, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, […], published March 1915, →OCLC, page 120