Eight Arabic Verbs for “to Postpone”

لاحِقاً

root: ل-ح-ق / adverb / definition: later on

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This week, we have another little treasure chest of synonyms to rummage through: eight Arabic verbs, all meaning “to postpone“.

You may ask “why this particular verb?” (or maybe you won’t, and you’re already scrolling past, to the juicy content)—and the answer is that there was a period of time a while ago when postponing was mentioned in so many news stories.

I kept hearing and noting down the different verbs and verbal nouns used, and then realised I had quite a cool little collection.

Like all of the posts in this series, this list of synonyms is not exhaustive, but here’s my little linguistic haul!

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أَجَّلَ / يُؤَجِّلُ / التَّأجيل

root: ء-ج-ل

form II

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أَخَّرَ / يُؤَخِّرُ / التَّأخير

root: ء-خ-ر

form II

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أَرجَأَ / يُرجِئُ / الإرجاء

root: ر-ج-ء

form IV

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مَطَلَ / يَمطُلُ / المَطل

root: م-ط-ل

form I

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ماطَلَ / يُماطِلُ / المُماطَلة

root: م-ط-ل

form III

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نَسَأَ / يَنسَأُ / النَّسء

root: ن-س-ء

form I

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أَنسَأَ / يُنسِئُ / الإنساء

root: ن-س-ء

form IV

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سَوَّفَ / يُسَوِّفُ / التَّسويف

root: س-و-ف

form II

Note that the root of this last verb is the same as that of the future tense marker, سَوفَ. We can also use this word to mean “to procrastinate”!

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That’s it for the synonyms in this post, but have you checked out last week’s post about the grammar of using numbers in Arabic?

And don’t forget: if you’re enjoying the posts on The Arabic Pages and would like to show your support, check out how you can do so here.

!إلى اللقاء

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