ProverbHub
Arabic · Arabic scriptProverb: Verified

«اللهْ لَا يِرْجِعْ الْغَلَا وَلَا كَيَّالُهْ»

Meanings

Each meaning is reviewed on its own.

Meaning: Verified
English translation

May neither the high prices nor the man who measures the grain ever return.

Literal wording

May God bring back neither high prices nor the grain measurer.

Meaning and lesson

This is said when an unwelcome condition has ended, expressing the hope that it will not return. The dismissal extends to the hardship itself and to a person associated with it in the speaker’s memory or blame.

It conveys emphatic rejection: the speaker wants the whole disagreeable situation gone, including anyone seen as tied to it. The grain measurer is an image for an associated individual, not a judgment about people in that occupation generally.

When it is used

Use it when an unpleasant condition has passed and a speaker sharply rejects its return, sometimes also dismissing an absent person linked to it. Its wording invokes God in a forceful wish or imprecation, so religious sensitivity may matter in translation and setting.

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