avash-avash

Albanian

Alternative forms

Etymology

Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish یواش یواش (yavaş yavaş). By surface analysis, reduplication of avash (“slowly”).

Adverb

avash-avash (colloquial)

  1. little by little, very slowly, gradually
    Synonym: dalëngadalë
    Avash-avash bëhet shelegu dash.
    Little strokes fell great oaks. (proverb)
    (literally, “Little by little the lamb becomes a ram.”)

References
  • “avash-avash”, in FGJSSH: Fjalor i gjuhës së sotme shqipe [Dictionary of the modern Albanian language]‎ (in Albanian), 1980, page 76a
  • Bufli, G., Rocchi, L. (2021) “javash”, in A historical-etymological dictionary of Turkisms in Albanian (1555–1954), Trieste: Edizioni Università di Trieste, page 227
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