How to say "palm tree" in Arabic
False friendMeaningpalm tree
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
nakhlaנח'לה
نخلة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
dekelدِكِل
How the two words are related
Sounds like a Hebrew word but means something else — handle with care.
Arabic root
ن-خ-لHebrew root
נ-ח-לA false friend dressed up as poetry: Arabic nakhla, 'palm tree', shares its letters exactly with Hebrew נחל, 'stream, wadi' — and palm trees do famously cluster around desert streams and oases, but the words themselves are not actually related. A fitting coincidence, not a cognate.
Related Hebrew word:נחלnakhalنَاخَال
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
Levantine softens the ending: nakhle.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija: nekhla, with a schwa in the first syllable.
In a phrase
a tall palm tree
Plural
collective plural — 'palms' as a grove; نَخَلَات counts individual trees