Learn Arabic › B2 › بُوصَة
بُوصَة
inch (the unit of length) /ˈbuː.sˤa/
nounB2#3703 most common
Also: a reed stalk (Egyptian colloquial sense, a distinct word spelled and pronounced the same)
Example sentences
الشاشة حجمها ثلاثون بوصة.
The screen is thirty inches.
طول هذا المسمار بوصة واحدة.
This nail is one inch long.
يبلغ قطر الأنبوب بوصتين.
The pipe's diameter is two inches.
اشتريت تلفازًا بشاشة تبلغ خمسًا وخمسين بوصة.
I bought a TV with a fifty-five-inch screen.
تُقاس أقطار الإطارات عادةً بالبوصة وليس بالسنتيمتر.
Tire diameters are usually measured in inches, not centimeters.
لم تتجاوز الزيادة في منسوب النهر بوصة واحدة خلال الأسبوع الماضي، مما أثار قلق المزارعين بشأن الري.
The rise in the river's level did not exceed one inch over the past week, which worried the farmers about irrigation.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | بُوصَةٌ | بُوصَاتٌ |
| Genitive | بُوصَةٍ | بُوصَاتٍ |
| Accusative | بُوصَةً | بُوصَاتٍ |
| Vocative | يا بُوصَةُ | يا بُوصَاتُ |
Word family
بوصاتinches (plural)
بوصتانtwo inches (dual)
نصف بوصةhalf an inch
بالبوصةin inches, by the inch
Etymology
بوصة is the standard Arabic name for the imperial inch. Arabic-speaking regions adopted the term as they absorbed European and Ottoman measurement systems in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when local languages needed a word for the English inch. The exact route the word took into Arabic is not firmly documented. It is unrelated in origin to the similarly written بوص, the Egyptian colloquial word for the reed or cane plant.
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