To journey

"Planning the Grand Tour" by Emil Brack / Creative Commons

سافَرَ sāfara, v: to travel, go on a journey

Sāfara is the common verb[1] for travel. Befitting not the trip to the bodega, but the JFK-CDG red eye, it is entirely unremarkable – or it would be if not for its derivation. Its seldom-used root سَفَرَ safara (“to unveil”) hints at a more elliptical meaning. Hence:[2]

“سفرت الريح الورق

The wind swept away the leaves

سفرت الريح الغيم

The wind dispersed the clouds

سفرت الشيء

I uncovered the thing.”

— Compiled by Lane

That travel can be revelatory is not merely the province of regional tourism boards (“Discover New England!”), but an animating principle rooted in the most fundamental of expressions.

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[1] In the masculine perfect form.

[2] These examples of safara appear in Edward William Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, reprint (Beirut, 1968), I: 1370.