Some Arabic Words for “Darkness”

اِسْحِنْكاك

root: س-ح-ك / form XIV verbal noun / definition: to be extremely dark

Last week for me was full of meetings, meet-ups, appointments, and a good three-hour conversation over dinner. So my productivity and social battery, this week, are dragging their feet to recovery—and taking a few hits on the way.

But we’re on the up. And so is the number of synonyms I’ve been adding to this list today…

Let’s take a look at some (and really, there are a lot more) Arabic words for darkness and gloominess:

ظَلام / ظُلْمة

root of both words: ظ-ل-م

(we might also be familiar with the plural form of ظلمة which is ظُلُمات)

عَتْمة

root: ع-ت-م

(in Wehr Wednesdays #58, we looked at a verbal noun from the same root which can mean, among other things, “blackout”)

قُتْمة / قَتَمة / قَتام

root: ق-ت-م

(these words are from the same root as قاتِم and أَقتَم which featured in Uncommon Arabic Words for Colours)

دَجّة

root: د-ج-ج

(yes, this one is derived from the exact same root as دَجاج, “chicken”!)

(we’ve also seen the word دَجوجي from this root in a previous post)

دُجًى

root: د-ج-و

(an interesting collocation can be found under the root of this noun: دَياجي الليل, “dark of night”)

دَيْجور

root: د-ج-ر

(we saw the adjective form of this noun in Wehr Wednesdays #102)

دُجْنة / دُجُنّة

root: د-ج-ن

(page 314 of the Hans Wehr has proved to be very useful for this post as it contains this noun plus the three above it!)

اِكْفِهْرار

root: ك-ف-ه-ر

(اكفهرار is a form IV quadriliteral verbal noun—from this form, we also get the quadriliteral active participle مُكفَهِرّ, meaning “gloomy”)

غَيْهَب

root: غ-ه-ب

(this noun looks similar, at surface level at least, to غَيب, “the unseen”)

جُنْح / جِنْح

root: ج-ن-ح

(we looked at this noun and its collocations in Root Exploration: ج-ن-ح)

عَشْواء / عَشْوة

root: ع-ش-و

(you might be familiar with other words from this root—like عَشاء, “dinner”)

حُلوكة

root: ح-ل-ك

(from this root, we also get the form XII verb: اِحْلَوْلَكَ / يَحْلَوْلِكُ, “to be pitch-black”)

كَسْف

root: ك-س-ف

(the word for “eclipse”, كُسوف, is derived from this root too)

So there we have quite a few synonyms, all meaning “darkness” and “gloom”! As mentioned, there are many more that could have been added to the list. Do you know of any?

See you on my next post, إلى اللقاء!