How to say "corn, maize (also: sorghum)" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningcorn, maize (also: sorghum)
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
dhuraד'רה
ذرة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
tirasتِيرَاس
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ذ-ر-وHebrew root
ז-ר-הDhura comes from ذَرَا / يَذْرُو, 'to winnow grain in the wind' — the same weak root, letter for letter (ذ↔ז, ر↔ר, final-weak و↔ה), as Hebrew זרה, 'to winnow' (as on Ruth's threshing floor). The grain got named after the wind that cleaned it; Hebrew's own word for the New-World crop, תירס, is unrelated.
Related Hebrew word:זרהzaraزَارَا
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
ذ becomes d in Cairo: dura.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija clips it to dra.
In a phrase
yellow corn