خَميس
root: خ-م-س / noun / definition: Thursday
Last Thursday marked my move into my twenty-ninth year of life, which makes me twenty-eight in some cultures and twenty-nine in others—and makes me closer to twenty-one in my head.
But it’s not like numbers really matter. Except in the case of the days of the week in Arabic of course, where Sunday is one day (الأَحَد) and so on until we reach the fifth, Thursday (الخَميس).
(I’m reminded of Joey from Friends whose Monday was one day but somehow Thursday was third…)
But let’s get back to الخميس, because before Thursday was titled the fifth day of the week, the dictionary tells us this day had another name.
I was browsing the root ء-ن-س in Lane’s Lexicon, thinking more deeply about the roots we explored in Uncommon Arabic Words for Mankind, when I stumbled upon the form IV active participle from the root: مُؤْنِس.
The form IV verb آنَسَ / يُؤْنِسُ means “to entertain” or “keep someone company”. Its active participle (مُؤنِس), then, literally means “that which entertains”.
Hence, we find on page 113 of the Lexicon the following:
So there it is: the fifth day, Thursday, used to be known as the day of entertainment and company.
This made me wonder. How many other days of the week had different names in Arabic? Have you come across any?
Hmm, I’ll add it to my to-research list.
!إلى اللقاء
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Turns out someone’s done the work for you…:)
https://raseef22.net/article/179710-%D8%AC%D9%8F%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A3%D8%B5%D9%85%D9%91-%D9%88%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A3%D9%8A%D8%A7%D9%85-%D9%88%D8%B4%D9%87%D9%88
Amazing! Thanks for sharing 🙌