«زَي ضَرَّابِينِ الْكُبَّهْ»

The saying compares someone to the invisible beings, jinn in folk belief, who prick people and raise the deadly swelling of plague. Here al-kubba is the plague bubo, not the meat dish kibbeh. Being likened to these beings means being seen as a source of ruin, someone whose arrival signals harm rather than good.

In use, the comparison points to a person widely disliked, suspected of causing serious damage, and regarded as ugly or frightening to look at. It gathers revulsion, dread and hostility into one image of a dreaded bringer of disease.

A harsh insult, said of a person others loathe and fear, someone expected to bring harm and whose appearance is found repellent. It likens that person to the beings once blamed in folk belief for spreading plague, and it is unsuitable for neutral description.