«لَا طَيَّارْ وَلَا نَافِخْ نَار»

This is said of a place found utterly empty and forsaken, with no sign of life at all. The two halves rhyme on ṭayyār and nār. They pair a creature that might be caught and cooked with a person who might kindle a fire, so the spot offers neither food nor company.

The first word allows two readings. Commonly it is taken as a bird, game to be roasted, giving the sense that there was nothing to grill and no one to grill it. It may instead be a garbled form of dayyār, an old word for an inhabitant, making the line simply say there is not a soul around.

Use it when arriving somewhere and finding it deserted, such as an abandoned village, an empty house or a stretch of wasteland. It conveys bleak emptiness, with a hint of complaint that nothing and no one was there to welcome you.