Arabic vocabulary
ضِيقٌdistress in Arabic
ضِيقٌ is how you say “distress” in Arabic. Hear it pronounced and see it used in real example sentences from classical texts below.
Root ض ي ق (ḍ-y-q)noun (substantive; also used as a verbal noun of ضَاقَ, form I)Pronounced ḍīq
Meaning of distress in Arabic
- narrowness, straitness — the contrary of ampleness or width; the basic sense shared with the verb ضَاقَ
- distress, strait circumstances; a constriction the mind cannot escape — figurative extension — Lane's glosses it as what the mind, being contracted, cannot bear, distinguishing it from ضَيْقٌ, which is used more for physical narrowness (a house, a garment)
ضِيقٌ names a strait or constricted state, often the abstract, mental kind that gives rise to the sense 'distress' — a tightness the mind cannot widen out of. This sets it apart somewhat from ضَيْقٌ, which Lane's ties more to physical narrowness, as in a house or a garment. The shared verb ضَاقَ appears in the Qur'an (9:119), describing the earth becoming strait upon those who held back from battle.
Words from the same root
- ضَاقَto be or become narrow, strait (form I verb)
- ضَيَّقَto make narrow, to straiten or constrict something (form II)
- ضَايَقَto straiten someone, treat them with hardness (form III)
- أَضَاقَto fall into poverty, one's means becoming strait (form IV)
- تَضَايَقَto become mutually straitened, to crowd one another (form VI)
- ضَيِّقٌnarrow, strait (adjective)
- أَضْيَقُnarrower, more strait (elative)
- مَضِيقٌa narrow place, a strait
Common questions
- How do you say "distress" in Arabic?
- ضِيقٌ (ḍīq) — from the root ض ي ق, also meaning narrowness or straitness.
- What is the root of ضِيقٌ and what other words come from it?
- The root is ض ي ق (ḍ-y-q), shared with the verb ضَاقَ 'to become narrow/strait', ضَيَّقَ 'to make narrow', and مَضِيقٌ 'a strait (narrow place)'.
Definitions synthesised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).
Example sentences
ولباس الذل وإهانة الْعَدو وضيق الصَّدْر
And the clothing of humiliation, the enemy's scorn, and tightness of the chest.
وَضِيقُ — and distress. wa- = 'and'; diq means 'narrowness, tightness', heading the next 'of…' word.
From: Returning to God →فوقعوا في حومة غفلة وفي ضيق شعر،
So they fell into the midst of heedlessness and into the narrowness of distress,
ضِيقِ — the narrowness of. This noun sits in the 'of' ending from the preposition fused before it, and it is also the first half of a possessive pair. As the leading noun it depends on the next word to say narrowness of what, with no separate word for 'of'.
From: Rain and God's Decree →
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