Learn Arabic › A1 › عَلَى
عَلَى
on /ʕaˈlaː/
particleA1#7 most common
Also: upon, over, against
Example sentences
الكِتابُ عَلَى الطّاوِلَةِ.
The book is on the table.
القِطَّةُ نائِمَةٌ عَلَى السَّريرِ.
The cat is sleeping on the bed.
يَجِبُ عَلَيْكَ أَنْ تَدرُسَ كُلَّ يَومٍ.
You must study every day.
حَصَلَتْ عَلَى الجائِزَةِ الأولى في المُسابَقَةِ.
She won first prize in the competition.
اِعتَمَدَ المَشروعُ عَلَى تَمويلٍ خارِجيٍّ لِعِدَّةِ سَنَواتٍ.
The project relied on external funding for several years.
عَلَى الرَّغمِ مِنْ كُلِّ العَقَباتِ، أَصَرَّ عَلَى مَوقِفِهِ حَتَّى النِّهايَةِ.
Despite all the obstacles, he insisted on his position until the very end.
Word family
عَلَيْهِon him/it (عَلَى + ـهُ)
عَلَيْكَupon you (often = it is incumbent on you)
أَعْلَىhigher, highest, upperعالٍhigh, lofty
عَلاto rise, be elevated
Etymology
عَلَى grammaticalized from the Proto-Semitic root ʿ-l-w 'to be high, rise, ascend', so its core spatial sense is 'on top of / above'. From that locative core it extended to mark obligation ('incumbent upon'), targets, and many fixed idioms. It is a frozen particle: the final ـى is an alif maqsura that surfaces as ـيْ before pronoun suffixes (عَلَيْهِ, عَلَيْكَ).
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