hóhon tóˀo gédaḥk di-ṣanˁá kor esófer di-saḳɔ́ṭri aḷ-ṭʸaf ḥe táḏkiraʰ ... wa-ḥtérḳik béne ˁaf ekoľíbin wa-gédaḥ mudír wa-kóľíbk toʸh ˁámok ḷóˀo aḷ-yóuṭaf ḥe ‘When I arrived in Sanaʾa in order to travel to Soqotra, no ticket was given to me... I was almost choking with anger and started ranting. Then the director came and I berated him, saying: “Why was no ticket sold to me?”’ (CSOL II 20:53)
While an ultimate borrowing from Arb. kalb- ‘dog’ is not in doubt, the exact path of semantic development is not clear. At least two possibilities suggest themselves: “to be aggressive, to attack” (like a rabid dog), cf. Classical klb III ‘to be at strife, to oppress, to rage against’, Yemeni kalab ‘to persecute’, or ‘to treat someone as miserable, humble’, Yemeni kalābah ‘acting like a dog, impudence, shamelessness’. It is, in any case, significant that no close semantic match to the Soqotri verb is attested either in Arabic (Classical or dialectal) or other MSA.