How to say "bicycle" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningbicycle
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
darrājaדראג'ה
دراجة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
ofanayimأُوفَانَايِم
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
د-ر-جHebrew root
ד-ר-גdarrāja, 'the stepper', comes from د-ر-ج 'to advance step by step'. Hebrew shares the root letter for letter — מדרגה 'stair' and דרגה 'rank, degree' — the same idea of graded steps, which Arabic put on two wheels.
Related Hebrew word:מדרגהmadregaمَدْرِگَا
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
From French bicyclette; darrāje is understood everywhere.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo's bicycle is an ʿagala, literally 'wheel', with the hard Egyptian g.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija: bishklīṭa, the French bicyclette with an emphatic ṭ.
In a phrase
I rode the bicycle.
Plural
sound feminine plural -āt.