ق ḳāf called قاف قرشت the twenty-first letter of the Arabic alphabet, does not occur in pure Persian, and has no analogous letter in Sans- krit. Its sound differs from that of ک or the

قا فيه ḳāfiya A (from قفا To follow) s. m. Rhyme, cadence, metre, the last letter in a verse, to which all the other distichs rhyme. (In poems which terminate in a double rhyme, the penult syllable is ḳāfiya, the last being called radīf). قافيه تنگ هونا ḳāfiya tang honā, To be very poor or distressed.

قاف ḳāf A (from قوف To trace oneʼs footsteps, or rather Heb. and Chald. To revolve or go round) s. m. A fabulous mountain, supposed to surround the world, and bound the horizon. It rests on the stone Sakhrat, an entire emerald, which covers the azure colour of the sky. 2. Mount Caucasus.

قافله ḳāfila A (from Chald. and Syr. To roll, fold, compress; q. d. a compact multitude) s. m. A body of travellers, a caravan. (Hence قفل To return from a journey: Willmet). قافله سالار ḳāfila-sālār, The leader, or chief of a ca- ravan. قافله باشي ḳāfila-bāshī, s. f. The chief- tainship of a caravan.