Tag Archives: vocabulary

Root Exploration: Venus, Mars, and Saturn

كَوْكَب root: ك-و-ك-ب / noun / plural: كَواكِب / definition: planet (compare with the Akkadian) Isn’t it ironic (or maybe just careless of me) that I placed all of my winter boots in storage just before the heavens opened over London last night and left us deluged in a mizzle-to-downpour pendulum. My friend questioned myContinue reading “Root Exploration: Venus, Mars, and Saturn”

Dictionary Finds: Zaʿtar, Saʿtar, and Ṣaʿtar

مِسْكين root: م-س-ك-ن / noun / plural: مَساكين / definition: poor thing If you know me in-person, you’ve probably been fortunate enough to be an unwilling spectator and/or listener to my gleeful blabbering about some dictionary find or linguistic observation. This weekend, my husband—yet again, مسكين…—was in the line of fire as I gushed aboutContinue reading “Dictionary Finds: Zaʿtar, Saʿtar, and Ṣaʿtar”

Fifteen Form XII Verbs in the Arabic Dictionary

اِصْطِناعي root: ص-ن-ع / nisba adjective / definition: artificial Since the rise of the AI search, the number of views my blog gets has tripped and faltered. It makes sense. Sometimes I myself type a grammar question into Google and—lo and behold—the AI overview summarises an answer (from none other than The Arabic Pages, theContinue reading “Fifteen Form XII Verbs in the Arabic Dictionary”

Dictionary Finds: مراح

شَلّال root: ش-ل-ل / noun / plural: شَلّالات / definition: waterfall It’s been a beautifully busy long weekend. Beach walks, waterfalls, countryside drives—oh, and still stealing some minutes here and there to upload videos to my YouTube channel. But it’s back to my laptop now and a return to the Dictionary Finds series…

Root Exploration: ء-ر-ب

مُسْتَشْفى root: ش-ف-ي / form X passive participle / plural: مُستَشفَيات / definition: hospital Four hours is how long we spent in A&E yesterday. And it’s interesting how the brain keeps itself busy during those drawn-out periods of waiting on seemingly uncomfortable-by-design chairs. My mind, for example, kept wandering between Subway sandwiches and the spacingContinue reading “Root Exploration: ء-ر-ب”

Arabic Observations: ذانِكَ

بُرْهان root: ب-ر-ه-ن / noun / plural: بَراهين / definition: proof It seems that I’ve unintentionally created a new series of posts this Ramadan, and now I can’t help but add to it. We’ve been looking at variations of ذلك/تلك in the Qur’an—specifically, how these demonstratives are modified with pronoun suffixes: But things don’t endContinue reading “Arabic Observations: ذانِكَ”