How to say "thing" in Arabic
New wordMeaningthing
Arabic · Modern Standard Arabic
شَيْء
shayʾשיא
شيء
Hebrew · Modern Hebrew
דבר
davarدَاڤَار
How the two words are related
New word
No Hebrew relative — learn it fresh.
Arabic root
ش-ي-ءLearn 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
حَاجَة
ḥāgaחאגהCairo's everyday 'thing' is ḥāga (literally 'need'): ʿāyiz ḥāga? — 'do you want anything?'
Moroccan · Morocco — Casablanca, Rabat, Fes
حَاجَة
ḥājaחאג'הDarija also says ḥāja: shi ḥāja — 'something'; wālu — 'nothing'.
In a phrase
كُلّ شَيْء تَمَام
kull shayʾ tamāmכל שיא תמאםEverything is fine.
Plural
أَشْيَاء
ashyāʾאשיאאfamously irregular broken plural — so unusual that the classical grammarians argued over its pattern