How to say "enthusiasm, zeal" in Arabic

Shifted meaning

Meaningenthusiasm, zeal

Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic

حَمَاس

ḥamāsחמאס

حماس

Hebrew · Modern Hebrew

התלהבות

hitlahavutهِتْلَاهَاڤُوت

How the two words are related

Shifted meaning

Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.

Arabic root

ح-م-س

Hebrew root

ח-מ-ס

Root ح-م-س / ח-מ-ס seems to have started somewhere around 'fierce, intense' — Arabic channeled that into martial zeal and enthusiasm (a classical anthology of battle poetry is even named Kitāb al-Ḥamāsa), while Hebrew חָמָס kept the harsher edge: violence, wrong, injustice ("the earth was filled with ḥamas", Genesis 6:11). Traditionally compared, not identical — one word's fire is the other's harm. Note the everyday overlap this creates: the Palestinian movement's name is this same Arabic word for zeal, spelled exactly like the unrelated-in-meaning Hebrew word for violence.

Related Hebrew word:חמסkhamasخَامَاس

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In a phrase

حَمَاس كَبِير
ḥamās kabīrחמאס כביר

great enthusiasm

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