How to say "to wash off, rinse" in Arabic
CognateMeaningto wash off, rinse
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
raḥaḍaרחצ'
رحض
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
rakhatsرَاخَاتْس
How the two words are related
Same Semitic root, same meaning — you already know this word.
Arabic root
ر-ح-ضHebrew root
ר-ח-ץRegular ح↔ח and ض↔צ (the same shift as أرض/ארץ) line raḥaḍa up with Hebrew רחץ — literally the same verb. raḥaḍa is a literary word in Arabic, mostly for washing out clothes or stains (everyday speech uses غسل instead); Hebrew רחץ, by contrast, became the everyday word for washing yourself.
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 washing in Levantine is ghasal; raḥaḍa barely surfaces outside literary Arabic.
Egyptian · Cairo and the Nile Delta
Cairo says ghasal as well.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija: ghsel.
In a phrase
He washed out the garment