ضِيقٌ distress in Arabic
ضِيقٌ is how you say “distress” in Arabic.
Root ض ي ق ḍ-y-q. noun (substantive; also used as a verbal noun of ضَاقَ, form I). ḍīq.
Arabic
English
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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)
Example sentence
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.
The English is machine-translated.
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How it is used
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
- ضَاقَ to be or become narrow, strait (form I verb)
- ضَيَّقَ to make narrow, to straiten or constrict something (form II)
- ضَايَقَ to straiten someone, treat them with hardness (form III)
- أَضَاقَ to fall into poverty, one's means becoming strait (form IV)
- تَضَايَقَ to become mutually straitened, to crowd one another (form VI)
- ضَيِّقٌ narrow, strait (adjective)
- أَضْيَقُ narrower, more strait (elative)
- مَضِيقٌ a narrow place, a strait
More example sentences
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'.
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)'.
Related words
Definitions summarised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).