How to say "thorn(s)" in Arabic
CognateMeaningthorn(s)
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
shawkשוך
شوك
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
kotsكُوتْس
How the two words are related
Same Semitic root, same meaning — you already know this word.
Arabic root
ش-و-كHebrew root
ש-ו-ךModern Hebrew's everyday word for thorn, קוץ, is unrelated — but Biblical Hebrew has the real cousin, tucked into a single verse: שֵׂךְ, 'thorn' (Numbers 33:55, plural שִׂכִּים), traditionally compared to this very root, with שׂ (sin) answering ش exactly as the sound laws predict. A hapax legomenon that never became Hebrew's working word for the plant's business end.
Related Hebrew word:שֵׂךְsekhسِخ
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
The aw flattens to ō: shōk.
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
Darija turns aw into ū: shūk.
In a phrase
a rose without thorns
Plural
broken plural aCCāC