Learn Arabic › B2 › زَيْف
زَيْف
falseness, counterfeitness (also: forgery, fraud) /zajf/
nounB2#4090 most common
Also: sham, spuriousness, fakery
Example sentences
هٰذَا الْخَبَرُ فِيهِ زَيْفٌ.
This news has some falseness in it.
كَشَفَ الْمُحَقِّقُ زَيْفَ الْوَثِيقَةِ.
The investigator exposed the falseness of the document.
يَكْشِفُ الْخُبَرَاءُ زَيْفَ الْعُمْلَةِ بِسُهُولَةٍ.
Experts expose the counterfeitness of the currency with ease.
أَظْهَرَتِ التَّحْلِيلَاتُ زَيْفَ الِادِّعَاءَاتِ الَّتِي رَوَّجَ لَهَا.
The analyses revealed the falseness of the claims he promoted.
لَا يُمْكِنُ إِخْفَاءُ زَيْفِ الْوَعْدِ إِلَى الْأَبَدِ، فَالْحَقِيقَةُ تَظْهَرُ عَاجِلًا أَمْ آجِلًا.
The falseness of the promise cannot be hidden forever; the truth appears sooner or later.
تَتَجَلَّى بَرَاعَةُ الْكَاتِبِ فِي قُدْرَتِهِ عَلَى تَعْرِيَةِ زَيْفِ الْخِطَابِ السِّيَاسِيِّ دُونَ اللُّجُوءِ إِلَى الْمُبَاشَرَةِ.
The writer's skill shows in his ability to strip away the falseness of political rhetoric without resorting to bluntness.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | زَيْفٌ | زُيُوفٌ |
| Genitive | زَيْفٍ | زُيُوفٍ |
| Accusative | زَيْفًا | زُيُوفًا |
| Vocative | يَا زَيْفُ | يَا زُيُوفُ |
Word family
زَيَّفَto counterfeit, forge, falsify
زَائِفfake, counterfeit, spurious
مُزَيَّفforged, faked
تَزْيِيفthe act of counterfeiting or forging
Etymology
Zayf comes from the Arabic root z-y-f (ز ي ف), which carries the core idea of something being false or counterfeit rather than genuine. The verb zāfa/yazīfu described a counterfeit coin failing to ring true when struck, and the noun zayf came to mean the quality of being fake or spurious. Arabic is a Semitic language, not Indo-European, so it has no Proto-Indo-European root or Western cognates.
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