Learn Arabic › B2 › وَي
وَي
oh! (exclamation of surprise or regret) /ˈwai/
nounB2#3959 most common
Also: ah!, woe!, how strange!
Example sentences
وَيْ! ما هٰذا؟
Oh! What is this?
وَيْ، لقد نسيتُ الكتابَ في البيت.
Oh, I forgot the book at home.
وَيْ لك يا مسكين، ماذا جرى؟
Oh, poor thing, what happened to you?
نظر إلى الخبر وقال: وَيْ، ما أشدَّ هٰذا الأمرَ!
He looked at the news and said, oh, how severe this matter is!
وَيْكَأَنَّ الرزقَ بيدِ اللهِ وحدَه، لا بيدِ أحدٍ سواه.
Ah, it is as if provision rests in God's hand alone, not in anyone else's.
وَيْكَأَنَّ اللَّهَ يَبْسُطُ الرِّزْقَ لِمَنْ يَشَاءُ مِنْ عِبَادِهِ وَيَقْدِرُ.
Ah, it is as if God extends provision to whomever He wills of His servants, and withholds it.
Word family
ويلwoe, ruin (as in 'woe to him')
ويحalas, an expression of pity
ويسa mild, half-sympathetic rebuke
وَيْكَأَنَّah, it is as if... (way fused with ka-anna)
Etymology
Way is an old Semitic interjection, not a word built from a verb root. Classical Arabic grammarians treat it as an ism al-fi'l, a noun that does the work of an exclamation, and it appears already in pre-Islamic poetry and in the Quran. Its main use is to mark a sudden jolt of surprise, grief, or realization, often right before the word ka-anna, as if, in the fixed phrase waykaanna. Because it is Semitic rather than Indo-European, it has no Proto-Indo-European root.
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