How to say "spring (water source)" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningspring (water source)
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
nabʿנבע
نبع
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
ma'ayanمَاءَايَان
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ن-ب-عHebrew root
נ-ב-עNabʿ comes from the verb nabaʿa, 'to gush forth' — exactly Hebrew נבע, used for water welling up (מים נובעים) and, by extension, for anything that stems from a source (נובע מ-). Arabic kept the noun for the spring itself; Hebrew mostly keeps the verb and uses מעיין for the spring.
Related Hebrew word:נבעnavaنَاڤَا
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
Everyday speech usually just says ʿēn — the same word as 'eye' (see that entry) — for a natural spring; nabʿ sounds more literary.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo, too, says ʿēn.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija turns ay into ī: ʿīn — the Ain of place names.
In a phrase
a water spring
Plural
irregular broken plural