How to say "town square" in Arabic
CognateMeaningtown square
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
raḥbaרחבה
رحبة
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
kikarكِيكَار
How the two words are related
Same Semitic root, same meaning — you already know this word.
Arabic root
ر-ح-بHebrew root
ר-ח-בYou've already met this root in مرحبا, 'hello' — ר-ח-ב/ر-ح-ب, 'wide, spacious'. Here the match runs deeper than the root: Arabic رحبة and Hebrew רחבה are the same word for the same thing, an open square or plaza. (Modern Hebrew's everyday word for a town square, כיכר, comes from an unrelated root meaning 'round, circular'.)
Related Hebrew word:רחבהrakhavaرَاخَاڤَا
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's square is a mīdān — Mīdān it-Taḥrīr.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Morocco's square is a sāḥa.
In a phrase
the market square
Plural
broken plural CiCāC — like جَبَل→جِبَال; رحاب often shows up in set phrases like في رحاب الجامعة, 'within the halls of the university'.