Learn Arabic › B1 › لَوْلا
لَوْلا
were it not for /lawˈlaː/
particleB1#2643 most common
Also: if not for, but for, if it were not for
Example sentences
لَوْلاكَ لَما فَعَلْتُ هذا.
If not for you, I would not have done this.
لَوْلا الماءُ لَماتَ النّاسُ عَطَشاً.
If not for water, people would have died of thirst.
لَوْلا مُساعَدَتُكَ لَما أَنْهَيْتُ المَشْروعَ في الوَقْتِ المُحَدَّدِ.
If not for your help, I would not have finished the project on time.
لَوْلا أَنَّ الطَّبيبَ وَصَلَ سَريعاً لَتَدَهْوَرَتْ حالَةُ المَريضِ.
If not for the doctor arriving quickly, the patient's condition would have gotten worse.
لَوْلا الإِصْلاحاتُ الاقْتِصادِيَّةُ الَّتي اتُّخِذَتْ في الوَقْتِ المُناسِبِ لَانْهارَ الاقْتِصادُ الوَطَنِيُّ.
If not for the economic reforms taken at the right time, the national economy would have collapsed.
لَوْلا أَنَّ الحُكَماءَ يَتَدَخَّلونَ أَحْياناً لِتَهْدِئَةِ النُّفوسِ، لَتَفاقَمَتِ الخِلافاتُ حَتّى اسْتَحالَ حَلُّها.
If wise people did not sometimes step in to calm tempers, disputes would escalate until they became impossible to resolve.
Word family
لوif (hypothetical condition)
لاnot, noلولاكwere it not for you
لوماif not for (rare synonym)
امتناع لوجودgrammar term: 'preclusion due to existence,' the technical name for what لولا expresses
Etymology
Lawlā fuses two ancient particles: law, used to introduce a hypothetical or unreal condition, and lā, the basic negator. Arabic grammarians file it as a single indeclinable particle of exception, one that states a thing did not happen because something else already existed. Hebrew preserves a near-identical construction, lulē, built from the same two elements meaning if and not, which points to a shared Semitic pattern rather than borrowing between the two languages.
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