Learn Arabic › B1 › رِوايَة
رِوايَة
novel /riˈwaː.ja/
nounB1#2251 most common
Also: narrative, account, story, version (of events)
Example sentences
هٰذِهِ رِوايَة.
This is a novel.
قَرَأْتُ رِوايَة جَميلَة.
I read a beautiful novel.
كَتَبَ نَجيب مَحفوظ رِواياتٍ كَثيرَة عَنِ القاهِرَة.
Naguib Mahfouz wrote many novels about Cairo.
تَدورُ أَحْداثُ الرِّوايَةِ في قَرْيَةٍ صَغيرَة.
The events of the novel take place in a small village.
قَدَّمَ الشاهِدُ رِوايَةً مُخْتَلِفَةً تَماماً عَمّا ذَكَرَهُ الشُّرْطِيُّ.
The witness gave an account completely different from what the police officer stated.
تَتَقاطَعُ في هٰذِهِ الرِّوايَةِ أَصْواتُ رُواةٍ كَثيرينَ، فَلا يَكادُ القارِئُ يُميِّزُ الحَقيقَةَ مِنَ الخَيال.
In this novel the voices of many narrators intersect, so the reader can barely tell fact from fiction.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | رِوايَةٌ | رِواياتٌ |
| Genitive | رِوايَةٍ | رِواياتٍ |
| Accusative | رِوايَةً | رِواياتٍ |
| Vocative | يا رِوايَةُ | يا رِواياتُ |
Word family
رَوىto narrate, relate, transmit
راوٍnarrator, storyteller
رِوائِيّnovelist
مَرْوِيّnarrated, transmitted
Etymology
The word comes from the Arabic root r-w-y, whose oldest sense is to water or to drink one's fill. From carrying water the sense shifted to carrying and passing on reports, that is, to narrate or transmit. رِوايَة first named an oral account or a transmitted tradition. In the modern period it was adopted as the term for the literary novel.
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