Learn Arabic › B2 › شِقّ
شِقّ
half /ˈʃɪqː/
nounB2#3773 most common
Also: side, part, hardship (in the fixed phrase بشق الأنفس)
Example sentences
أعطاني أخي شِقّ الرغيف.
My brother gave me half of the loaf.
كان نائمًا على شِقِّه الأيمن.
He was sleeping on his right side.
قسمنا التفاحة إلى شِقَّين متساويين.
We divided the apple into two equal halves.
وصل المتسلقون إلى القمة بشِقِّ الأنفس بعد يومين من الجهد.
The climbers reached the summit with great difficulty after two days of effort.
تنقسم المدينة القديمة إلى شِقَّين، شرقي وغربي، يختلفان في طابعهما المعماري.
The old city is divided into two halves, an eastern and a western one, differing in architectural character.
ورد في القرآن الكريم وصف بلاد بعيدة "لم تكونوا بالغيه إلا بشِقِّ الأنفس"، إشارة إلى مشقة الوصول إليها.
The Quran describes a distant land that travelers "could not have reached except with great hardship," a reference to how difficult it was to get there.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | شِقٌّ | شُقُوقٌ |
| Genitive | شِقٍّ | شُقُوقٍ |
| Accusative | شِقًّا | شُقُوقًا |
| Vocative | يا شِقُّ | يا شُقُوقُ |
Word family
شَقّcrack, splitting, fissure
شَقيقfull brother
انْشَقّto split open, crack, break away
مَشَقّةhardship, toil
شُقّةapartment; a long stretch of distance
Etymology
شِقّ comes from the triliteral Semitic root ش-ق-ق, whose basic sense is splitting or cleaving something in two. The noun pattern فِعْل turns that action into its result: a piece produced by a split, hence a half or a side. The same root gives Arabic its verb for cracking open and its word for a full brother, someone from the same undivided origin.
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