Learn Arabic › B2 › سُلَحْفاة
سُلَحْفاة
turtle (also tortoise) /sulaħˈfaːh/
nounB2#3549 most common
Also: tortoise
Example sentences
هذِهِ سُلَحْفاةٌ.
This is a turtle.
السُّلَحْفاةُ بَطيئةٌ.
The turtle is slow.
رَأَيْتُ سُلَحْفاةً في الحَديقةِ.
I saw a turtle in the garden.
تَعيشُ السَّلاحِفُ البَحْريّةُ في المُحيطِ.
Sea turtles live in the ocean.
تَتَحَرَّكُ السُّلَحْفاةُ بِبُطءٍ شَديدٍ لكِنَّها تَصِلُ إلى هَدَفِها أَخيراً.
The turtle moves very slowly, but it eventually reaches its goal.
عاشَت تِلكَ السُّلَحْفاةُ العِملاقةُ أَكثَرَ مِن مِئَتَي عامٍ، وَفْقاً لِما ذَكَرَهُ الباحِثونَ الذينَ دَرَسوا عُمرَها.
That giant tortoise lived more than two hundred years, according to the researchers who studied its age.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | سُلَحْفاةٌ | سَلاحِفُ |
| Genitive | سُلَحْفاةٍ | سَلاحِفَ |
| Accusative | سُلَحْفاةً | سَلاحِفَ |
| Vocative | يا سُلَحْفاةُ | يا سَلاحِفُ |
Word family
سُلَحْفاةturtle, tortoise
سَلاحِفturtles (plural)
سُلَحْفاة بحريةsea turtle
سُلَحْفاة بريةtortoise, land turtle
سُلَيْحِفةlittle turtle (diminutive)
Etymology
Sulaḥfāh comes from a rare four-consonant Arabic root, s-l-ḥ-f, used for no other word in the language. Classical lexicographers already noted this oddity and offered guesses rather than firm derivations. One old folk theory links it to salaḥa, meaning to void waste, on account of the animal's slow, heavy gait, but modern scholars treat this as speculation rather than established fact. The safest account is that the word is native Arabic vocabulary tied to a single, isolated root.
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