Learn Arabic › A1 › مَكان
مَكان
place /maˈkaːn/
nounA1#78 most common
Also: location, spot, room/space
Example sentences
هٰذا مَكانٌ جَميلٌ.
This is a beautiful place.
أَينَ مَكانُ المَوقِف؟
Where is the place of the (parking) stop?
ضَعِ الكِتابَ في مَكانِهِ.
Put the book back in its place.
لَم نَجِد مَكاناً لِلجُلوسِ في المَقهى.
We didn't find a place to sit in the café.
زُرنا أَماكِنَ تاريخِيّةً كَثيرةً خِلالَ رِحلَتِنا إلى القاهِرة.
We visited many historic places during our trip to Cairo.
مَهما تَغَيَّرَتِ الظُّروفُ، يَبقى لِلوَطَنِ مَكانٌ خاصٌّ في القَلب.
No matter how circumstances change, the homeland keeps a special place in the heart.
Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | مَكانٌ | أَماكِنُ |
| Genitive | مَكانٍ | أَماكِنَ |
| Accusative | مَكاناً | أَماكِنَ |
| Vocative | يا مَكانُ | يا أَماكِنُ |
Word family
كانَto be, to exist
كَوْنuniverse, cosmos, existenceمَكانةstatus, standing, prestige
أَمكَنَto be possible, to enable
مُمكِنpossible
Etymology
مَكان derives from the Semitic root ك-و-ن (k-w-n) 'to be, to exist,' via the verb كانَ (kāna) 'to be.' It is a maf'al-pattern noun of place, literally 'a place where something is/exists,' with the weak wāw surfacing as a long ā. Arabic grammarians later reanalyzed the مـ as a root consonant, giving it a secondary root م-ك-ن that produced the broken plural أَماكِن and a whole family of 'possibility/enablement' words (أَمكَنَ، تَمَكَّنَ، إمكان).
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