su'luk

English

Etymology

From Arabic صعلوك (“vagabond, brigand”).

Noun

su'luk (plural su'luks or sa'alik)

1. A type of pre-Islamic Arabic vagabond, living outside settled society, and often associated with writing poetry.
   • 2006, Robert Irwin, The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature:

     Al-Shanfara al-Azdi was one of the most notorious of the sa'alik.

   • 2013, Gabriel Levin, The Dune's Twisted Edge, page 88:

     His night journey, “wolf scene,” and description of bedding another man's wife could have come straight out of a su‘luk poem.

   • 2019, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Arabs, Yale University Press, page 99:

     The Arabic that the su’luks learned to speak was the high language of rhetoric and poetry.