How to say "broom" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningbroom
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
miknasaמכנסה
مكنسة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
matateمَاتَاتِي
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ك-ن-سHebrew root
כ-נ-סRoot כ-נ-ס is the same in both: Arabic كنس means 'to sweep, gather up' while Hebrew כנס means 'to gather, assemble' — the very root behind כנסת, the Knesset, and בית כנסת, a synagogue. A miknasa gathers the dust into a pile; a כנסת gathers the people into a hall. Hebrew's actual word for a broom, מטאטא, comes from an entirely different root.
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
A different word: maʾashsha is the Cairo broom.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
A different word: sheṭṭāba is the Darija broom.
In a phrase
She swept the room with the broom.
Plural
broken plural maCāCiC — like مَكْتَب→مَكَاتِب