How to say "glasses" in Arabic
Shifted meaningMeaningglasses
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
naẓẓāraנט'ארה
نظارة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
mishkafayimمِشْكَافَايِم
How the two words are related
Same root as a Hebrew word, but the meaning drifted over the centuries.
Arabic root
ن-ظ-رHebrew root
נ-צ-רNaẓẓāra is 'the looker', an intensive noun from ن-ظ-ر 'to look' — cognate with Biblical נ-צ-ר 'to watch, guard' (Hebrew צ ↔ Arabic ظ, the same swap as in צהריים ↔ ظُهْر). Arabic kept looking; Hebrew put the eyes on guard duty.
Related Hebrew word:נצרnatsarنَاتْسَار
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 naḍḍāra, with ظ pronounced as ḍ.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija's glasses are nḍāḍer.
In a phrase
sunglasses
Plural
sound feminine plural -āt; often used in the plural, just like משקפיים