How to say "hungry" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaninghungry
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
jawʿānג'ועאן
جوعان
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
ra'evرَائِڤ
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ج-و-عHebrew root
ג-ו-עKlein's dictionary connects this root to Hebrew gava (גווע), 'to expire, waste away' — the link being that hunger, taken far enough, is how creatures perish. It's a debated comparison, but a vivid one: the everyday Hebrew word for hungry, ra'ev, carries none of that drama.
Related Hebrew word:גוועgavaگَاڤَا
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
Cairo says gaʿān, hard g and no w.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija: jīʿān.
In a phrase
a hungry child
Plural
broken plural CiCāC — 'to feed the hungry' uses this plural