How to say "hammer" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaninghammer
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
miṭraqaמטרקה
مطرقة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
patishپَاتِيش
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ط-ر-قHebrew root
ט-ר-קHebrew's word for hammer, פטיש, is unrelated. But the verb לִטְרוֹק, 'to slam (a door),' is most likely this same root rather than a modern loan: ט-ר-ק already appears in Talmudic Aramaic for banging a door shut, and it lines up regularly with ط-ر-ق, Arabic ṭaraqa 'to knock, strike' — the same root that makes a miṭraqa 'the striking-thing.'
Related Hebrew word:לטרוקlitrokلِتْرُوك
Learn it
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 everyday spoken word for hammer; miṭraqa reads as more formal/technical.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo, too, says shākūsh.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija keeps the MSA word in its clipped shape: mṭerqa.
In a phrase
He hammered in the nail.
Plural
broken plural maCāCiC — like مِكْنَسَة→مَكَانِس