دبابة

Tool noun from دَبَّ‎ (dabba, “to crawl, to creep”).

• IPA^(key): /dab.baː.ba/

دَبَّابَة • (dabbāba) f (plural دَبَّابَات‎ (dabbābāt))

1. tank, armoured vehicle
2. (historical) A kind of medieval siege engine designed to shelter men who are digging a hole in enemy fortifications
   • a. 1234, بهاء الدين ابن شداد‎ [Bahāʔ ad-Dīn b. Šaddād], edited by Albert Schultens, النوادر السلطانية والمحاسن اليوسفية [The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin]‎, Leiden: Samuel Luchtman, published 1732, Pars 1, Cap. 37, page 75:

     ‏ولما تكاملت عنده آلات القتال من المناجنيق والدبابات والستائر وغير ذلك نازل عليها في ثاني وعشرين وضائقها وقاتلها قتالا عظيما‎

     Having finished erecting the machines of war, mangonels, crawlers and blinds and more he attacked it the twenty-secondth time, tightly in a rough clash.

3. anything that creeps; an animal that creeps or crawls
   • 1865 CE, Bible (SVD), Book of Genesis, 1:24:

     ‏وَقَالَ اللَّٰهُ: «لِتُخْرِجِ الأَرْضُ ذَوَاتِ أَنْفُسٍ حَيَّةٍ كَجِنْسِهَا: بَهَائِمَ، وَدَبَّابَاتٍ، وَوُحُوشَ أَرْضٍ كَأَجْنَاسِهَا». وَكَانَ كَذَٰلِكَ.‎‎

     waqāla llāhu: “lituḵriji l-ʔarḍu ḏawāti ʔanfusin ḥayyatin kajinsihā: bahāʔima, wadabbābātin, wawuḥūša ʔarḍin kaʔajnāsihā”. wakāna kaḏālika.

     And God said: Let the earth bring forth the living creature in its kind, cattle and creeping things, and beasts of the earth, according to their kinds. And it was so done.