How to say "medicine" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningmedicine
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
dawāʾדואא
دواء
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
trufaتْرُوفَا
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
د-و-يHebrew root
ד-ו-הArabic dāʾ 'disease' and dawāʾ 'remedy' are weak-root siblings (d-w-ʾ / d-w-y). Biblical Hebrew kept the ailment side: דוה 'ill, faint' and דווי 'illness, misery' (as in מדווה) — Hebrew named the sickness, Arabic also named the cure.
Related Hebrew word:דוויdvayدْڤَاي
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On the street
How people actually say it in the spoken dialects, where it differs from the standard word.
Levantine · Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria
The final hamza drops in speech: dawa.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo too: dawa (pl. adwiya).
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija: dwa.
In a phrase
I took the medicine.