How to say "grade, mark" in Arabic
New wordMeaninggrade, mark
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
ʿalāmaעלאמה
علامة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
tsiyunتْسِيُون
How the two words are related
No Hebrew relative — learn it fresh.
Arabic root
ع-ل-مSame ع-ل-م root as muʿallim 'teacher' and ʿilm 'knowledge' — a ʿalāma is literally a 'marker, sign' that makes something known. The tempting Hebrew match, ע-ל-ם ('hidden' — as in נעלם), points in the opposite semantic direction, so this app doesn't call it a cognate; treat the resemblance as a memory hook, not an etymology.
Learn it
On the street
How people actually say it in the spoken dialects, where it differs from the standard word.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
A different word: Cairo grades are daragāt, with a hard g.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
A different word: a mark in Moroccan school is a nuqṭa.
In a phrase
a good grade
Plural
sound feminine plural -āt.
The root family
ع-ل-م· knowing
Arabic's great knowledge root — science, teachers, flags, and the world itself. Hebrew's ע-ל-ם is a different root meaning "to hide" (נעלם, תעלומה), so there is no straight twin; Hebrew covers this ground with י-ד-ע and ל-מ-ד instead. Yet עולם and ʿālam are clearly the same word — many linguists hold that Arabic took ʿālam from Aramaic ʿālmā, so the world sneaks in through a side door.
- عِلْم ʿilmknowledge, science
- عَلِمَ ʿalimahe knew
- مُعَلِّم muʿallimteacher
- عَالَم ʿālamworldעוֹלָםworld — likely the same word via Aramaic
- تَعْلِيم taʿlīmeducation, instruction
- عَلَم ʿalamflag, banner