Learn Arabic › B2 › قِلّ
قِلّ
scarcity, fewness, paucity /ˈqɪlː/
nounB2#3636 most common
Also: smallness in quantity, shortage
Example sentences
الماءُ قِلٌّ في الصَّحراءِ.
Water is scarce in the desert.
عِندَنا قِلٌّ مِنَ الطَّعامِ هذا الأُسبوعَ.
We have a scarcity of food this week.
قِلُّ الأمطارِ هذا العامَ أثَّرَ على المحاصيلِ.
The scarcity of rain this year affected the crops.
يُعاني السُّكَّانُ مِن قِلِّ المواردِ الطَّبيعيَّةِ في المِنطقةِ.
The population suffers from a scarcity of natural resources in the region.
لا يُمكِنُ تفسيرُ الأزمةِ الاقتصاديَّةِ إلّا بِقِلِّ الاستثمارِ الأجنبيِّ.
The economic crisis can only be explained by the scarcity of foreign investment.
على الرَّغمِ مِن قِلِّ الأدلَّةِ التَّاريخيَّةِ، تَمكَّنَ الباحثونَ مِن إعادةِ بِناءِ جُزءٍ مُهمٍّ مِن تلكَ الحضارةِ المَنسيَّةِ.
Despite the paucity of historical evidence, the researchers managed to reconstruct an important part of that forgotten civilization.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | قِلٌّ | |
| Genitive | قِلٍّ | |
| Accusative | قِلًّا | |
| Vocative | يا قِلُّ |
Word family
قَلَّto be few, to decrease
قَلِيلfew, littleقِلَّةscarcity, fewness (synonym)
أَقَلّfewer, lessتَقْلِيلreduction, decreaseEtymology
قِلّ comes from the Semitic root q-l-l, which carries the core sense of being few, small, or light in weight or worth. This root gave rise to a whole family of Arabic words about scarcity and smallness. قِلّ is a bare masdar (verbal noun) built on the pattern fi'l, standing alongside the more common قِلّة with the same meaning.
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