Three Arabic Words for “Sleeplessness”

سَهْران

root: س-ه-ر / adjective / definition: sleepless

Here I sit, nearby suitcase half-packed with un-ironed clothes, and I remember that it’s been a while since our last post in the synonyms series.

In fact, it was over two months ago—so, before my move—that I wrote Seventeen Arabic Words for Peace and my thesaurus-inclined mind craves another.

Seeing as I’ve been starting my days from 5:30am for the past two months, my brain drifted to sleep’s antonym as the topic for this post, so here we are with three Arabic nouns meaning “sleeplessness” or “insomnia“:

أَرَق

root: ء-ر-ق

The form I verb of this root, أَرِقَ / يَأرَقُ, means “to find no sleep”; the form II verb, أَرَّقَ / يُؤَرِّقُ translates to “to prevent someone from sleeping”—remember: form II verbs have a causative meaning!

سُهْد، سُهاد

root: س-ه-د

Both of these nouns carry the same meaning.

Like above, the form I verb from this root (سَهِدَ / يَسهَدُ) means “to be sleepless” whilst the form II verb (سَهَّدَ / يُسَهِّدُ) means “to make someone sleepless”.

سَهَر، سُهار

root: س-ه-ر

And following س-ه-د in the dictionary, we find س-ه-ر. It’s no coincidence that two roots of the same core meaning are so similar—we discussed this pair in Arabic Observations: Another Collection of Word Twins.

The form I سَهِرَ / يَسهَرُ means “to be sleepless”, of course. But it’s the form IV verb from this root, أَسهَرَ / يُسهِرُ that holds the meaning of “making someone sleepless”. Both form II and IV verbs carry causative meaning.

Notice that all the form I verbs in this list follow the same vowelling pattern: فَعِلَ / يَفعَلُ. The kasra on the middle root letter in the past tense with the fatha on it in the present tense form indicates that the verb refers to a transitory state—for more on this, see Form I Verb Vowelling Patterns.

Isn’t it nice for the verbs to reassure us that sleeplessness is a temporary thing? That soon we’ll fall once more into a sweet slumber and drift… zzzzz.

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