Learn Arabic › B1 › صَرْف
صَرْف
exchange (as in currency exchange or disbursement of money) /ˈsˤarf/
nounB1#2880 most common
Also: disbursement, spending, conjugation/morphology (grammar)
Example sentences
أُريدُ صَرْفَ هذا الشِّيك.
I want to cash this check.
ما هو سِعْرُ الصَّرْفِ اليَوْمَ؟
What is the exchange rate today?
يَجِبُ صَرْفُ الرَّاتِبِ في بِدايَةِ الشَّهْرِ.
The salary must be disbursed at the start of the month.
تُشْرِفُ وِزارَةُ المالِيَةِ عَلى عَمَلِيّاتِ الصَّرْفِ الحُكومِيِّ.
The Ministry of Finance oversees government disbursement operations.
يَدْرُسُ الطُّلّابُ عِلْمَ الصَّرْفِ لِفَهْمِ تَصْريفِ الأَفْعالِ العَرَبِيَّةِ.
Students study morphology (sarf) to understand the conjugation of Arabic verbs.
أَدّى ارْتِفاعُ سِعْرِ الصَّرْفِ إلى تَراجُعِ القُدْرَةِ الشِّرائِيَّةِ لِلْمُواطِنينَ.
The rise in the exchange rate led to a decline in citizens' purchasing power.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | صَرْفٌ | صُروفٌ |
| Genitive | صَرْفٍ | صُروفٍ |
| Accusative | صَرْفًا | صُروفًا |
| Vocative | يا صَرْفُ | يا صُروفُ |
Word family
صَرَفَto spend, to exchange, to turn away
صَرّافmoney changer, cashier
تَصْريفconjugation; drainage/disposal
مَصْروفexpense, pocket money
اِنْصِرافdeparture, dismissal
Etymology
Sarf is a masdar, a verbal noun, built from the Arabic triliteral root ص-ر-ف (ṣ-r-f), whose core sense is turning or diverting something. From that base sense Arabic developed the meanings of turning money into another form, hence exchange, and of turning it outward, hence spending or disbursement. The same root gave classical grammarians the term for morphology, since it covers how a verb is turned through its different inflected forms.
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