And as for the place where males put on the veils of women, and the ladies of the alcoves go forth with the turbans of men; it is the first degree of the numeral, when in the state of annexion; namely, the numerals between three and ten, for they have in the masculine, and are without it in the feminine, as in the phrase of Him Most High, (He compelled it upon them seven nights and eight days consecutively); while every­where else the is one of the distinctives of the feminine. You see how the rule of masculine and feminine is reversed in this case; so that each turns to a form that is not its own, and goes forth in the garb of the other.

As to the place where the keeping of ranks is necessary to the struck and the striker; it is when there is ambiguity between the agent and the patient, through the sign of inflection failing to be openly expressed in both or one of them. This takes place when they are both maḳṣûr, like or ; or belong to the nouns of indication, like and . In such cases it is necessary, for the avoiding of ambiguity, that each of the two nouns should be kept in its proper order; so that the agent may be known by its coming first, and the patient by its following after.

As for the noun which gives no sense except by the addition to it of two words, or the shortening of it to two letters, it is (what­ever). About this word there are two opinions: one that it is com­pounded of which means “stop,” and of ; the second, and the correct one, is that the root of the word is , to which another was added augmentively, as it is to , so that the utterance became . But the succession of two words with the same utter­ance became troublesome to people, and they substituted for the first elif, so that the two became . This word is one of the instruments of condition and compensation, and when you utter it the sentence is not completed, and the meaning is not seized, except by the addition of two words after it, as, “Whatever you do I will do,” so that it necessarily “adheres” to a verb. But if you shorten it to the two letters , meaning “stop,” then the meaning is intelligible, and in that case you “compel” him you are addressing to stop.

And as for the epithet which, when it is followed by , he to whom it is applied lessens in men’s eyes, and is set low, and is reckoned among the simpletons, and exposes himself to dishonour; it is (a guest), which, when is added to it, changes to , which means one who intrusively follows the guest, and who is set down as base coin when he is tested.