Learn ArabicB1 › شاقّ

شاقّ

arduous, hard (exhausting to do) /ˈʃaːqː/

adjectiveB1#2835 most common

Also: strenuous, grueling, trying

Example sentences

هذا العمل شاقّ.
This work is hard.
كان يومي شاقّاً اليوم.
My day was exhausting today.
كانت الرحلة شاقّة بسبب الطقس الحار.
The trip was arduous because of the hot weather.
يبذل العمال جهداً شاقّاً في بناء الجسر.
The workers put in strenuous effort building the bridge.
كان التدريب العسكري شاقّاً لدرجة أن كثيراً من المجندين انسحبوا.
The military training was so grueling that many recruits dropped out.
رغم أن المفاوضات كانت شاقّة ومضنية على مدى أشهر، توصل الطرفان أخيراً إلى اتفاق تاريخي.
Although the negotiations were arduous and exhausting over months, the two sides finally reached a historic agreement.

Declension

CaseSingularPlural
Nominativeشاقٌّشاقّونَ
Genitiveشاقٍّشاقّينَ
Accusativeشاقًّاشاقّينَ
Vocativeيا شاقُّيا شاقّونَ

Word family

شقّto split, cleave; to be hard on (someone)
مشقّةhardship, toil
شقيقfull brother; twin
انشقاقsplit, defection, schism
تشقّقcracking, fissuring

Etymology

شاقّ comes from the Arabic root ش-ق-ق, whose base verb شقّ means to split or cleave something open. The same root produced the idiom شقّ عليه, literally it split him, meaning it strained or burdened him. شاقّ is the active participle of that root, so it literally means splitting or straining, and it settled into its modern sense of hard, exhausting, or arduous.

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