Learn Arabic › B2 › بَلِيّ
بَلِيّ
a worn-out thing (especially a garment) /baˈlijː/
nounB2#4001 most common
Also: threadbare garment, shabby, old object
Example sentences
هذا ثوبٌ بَلِيٌّ.
This is a worn-out garment.
عندي حذاءٌ بَلِيٌّ لا أستعمله.
I have a worn-out shoe that I don't use.
رمى الفلاحُ حبلَه البَلِيَّ بعد أن انقطع.
The farmer threw away his worn-out rope after it snapped.
وجدتُ في الخزانةِ القديمةِ كتابًا بَلِيًّا تكاد صفحاتُه تتفتت.
In the old cabinet I found a worn-out book whose pages were nearly crumbling.
تعلّقتُ بذلك الكرسيِّ البَلِيِّ رغم إلحاح زوجتي على استبداله.
I grew attached to that worn-out chair despite my wife's insistence on replacing it.
يصف الشاعر في قصيدته جدارًا بَلِيًّا يختزن ذكريات الديار الغابرة، رمزًا لزوال الزمن.
In his poem, the poet describes a worn-out wall that holds the memories of bygone homes, a symbol of time's passing.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | بَلِيٌّ | None |
| Genitive | بَلِيٍّ | None |
| Accusative | بَلِيًّا | None |
| Vocative | يا بَلِيُّ | None |
Word family
بَلِيَto wear out, become old or decayed
بالٍworn out, shabby (the everyday equivalent)
بِلًىwear, decay, deterioration
بَلِيَّةaffliction, calamity (same root, different lexical path)
أَبْلَىto wear something out; also, to acquit oneself in a deedEtymology
بَلِيّ comes from the triliteral root ب-ل-ي, which covers wearing out, aging, and decaying. It is built on the فعيل pattern, a shape that often forms intensive or passive-quality adjectives, and here it has settled into use as a noun for a worn-out object, usually cloth or another everyday item. The same root gives the common adjective بالٍ, which largely replaced بَلِيّ in everyday Modern Standard Arabic. This root has a direct parallel in Hebrew, another Semitic language.
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