How to say "forty" in Arabic
CognateMeaningforty
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
أَرْبَعُون
arbaʿūnארבעון
أربعون
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
ארבעים
arba'imأَرْبَائِيم
How the two words are related
Cognate
Same Semitic root, same meaning — you already know this word.
Arabic root
ر-ب-عHebrew root
א-ר-ב-עארבעים and arbaʿūn are the same root ר-ב-ע/ر-ب-ع pluralized the same way — and 'forty years' is a set phrase in both: ארבעים שנה is exactly أَرْبَعُون سَنَة, the biblical wilderness number and the Quranic one alike.
Learn it
On the street
How people actually say it in the spoken dialects, where it differs from the standard word.
Levantine · Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria
اَرْبَعِين
arbaʿīnארבעיןThe everyday oblique form: arbaʿīn, as in the mourning custom al-arbaʿīn, 'the fortieth day'.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
أَرْبِعِين
arbiʿīnארבעיןWith Cairo's kasra: arbiʿīn.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
ربْعِين
rebʿīnרבעיןIn a phrase
أَرْبَعُون سَنَة
arbaʿūn sanaארבעון סנהforty years