Note 408 — IBRAHIM BIN AL-MAHDI AND THE MERCHANT’S SISTER.

i.e. “the father of a certain person”; here the merchant whose name may have been Abu’l Hasan, etc. The useful word (thingumbob, what d’ye call him, donchah, etc.) has been bodily transferred into Spanish and Portugese—Fulano. It is of old genealogy, found in the Heb. Fuluní which applies to a person only in Ruth iv. 1; but is constantly so employed by Rabbinic writers. The Greek use ὁ δεῖνα.