Learn Arabic › B2 › دَفْتَر
دَفْتَر
notebook /ˈdaf.tar/
nounB2#3359 most common
Also: register, ledger, exercise book
Example sentences
هٰذَا دَفْتَرِي.
This is my notebook.
أَحْضَرْتُ دَفْتَرًا جَدِيدًا لِلْمَدْرَسَةِ.
I brought a new notebook for school.
نَسِيتُ دَفْتَرِي فِي البَيْتِ وَلَمْ أَسْتَطِعْ تَدْوِينَ الوَاجِبِ.
I forgot my notebook at home and could not write down the homework.
كَتَبَتِ الطَّالِبَةُ مُلَاحَظَاتِهَا فِي دَفْتَرٍ خَاصٍّ بِالكِيمْيَاءِ.
The student wrote her notes in a notebook dedicated to chemistry.
يَحْتَفِظُ التَّاجِرُ بِدَفْتَرِ حِسَابَاتٍ دَقِيقٍ لِتَتَبُّعِ كُلِّ عَمَلِيَّةٍ مَالِيَّةٍ.
The merchant keeps a precise account ledger to track every financial transaction.
تَعُودُ أَقْدَمُ دَفَاتِرِ الأَوْقَافِ العُثْمَانِيَّةِ إِلَى القَرْنِ السَّادِسَ عَشَرَ، وَهِيَ مَصْدَرٌ لَا يُقَدَّرُ بِثَمَنٍ لِلْمُؤَرِّخِينَ.
The oldest Ottoman endowment registers date back to the sixteenth century, and they are an invaluable source for historians.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | دَفْتَرٌ | دَفَاتِرُ |
| Genitive | دَفْتَرٍ | دَفَاتِرَ |
| Accusative | دَفْتَرًا | دَفَاتِرَ |
| Vocative | يَا دَفْتَرُ | يَا دَفَاتِرُ |
Word family
دَفَاتِرnotebooks, registers (plural)
دَفْتَرِيّrelating to records or ledgers, clerical
دَفْتَردَارtreasurer, keeper of the registers (historical Ottoman administrative title)
دَفْتَرخانةrecords office, archive
Etymology
Arabic دَفْتَر is a loanword. It came from Persian دفتر (daftar), which came from Aramaic diftera, which traces back to Greek διφθέρα (diphthera), a word for tanned animal hide once used as a writing surface before paper spread. The term moved through the medieval bureaucracies of the Islamic world and later into Ottoman Turkish as defter, carrying the sense of a bound register or account book.
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