Zabbaleen
The Zabbaleen ( ', ) is a word which literally means "garbage people" in Egyptian Arabic. The contemporary use of the word in Egyptian Arabic is to mean "garbage collectors". In cultural contexts, the word refers to teenagers and adults who have served as Cairo's informal garbage collectors since approximately the 1940s. The Zabbaleen (singular: ', ) are also known as Zarraba (singular: Zarrab), which means "pig-pen operators." The word ' came from the Egyptian Arabic word ' (, ) which means "garbage".
Isabelline (colour)
Other theories focus on animals close to the colour as the source of the word. In 1904 several writers to the journal "Notes and Queries", prompted by a question of etymology, debated that the word could have begun as a corruption of the word zibellino (a sable pelt accessory), noting the similarity in colour and the popularity of the accessory around the period the word first came into use. Etymologist Michael Quinion reported that certain sources suggested an alleged Arabic word for lion, "izah", might be the origin, indicating an intended original meaning close to "lion-coloured", but has since concluded that "there seems to be no such word in Arabic and we must disregard the suggestion".