تَحِيَّة greeting in Arabic
تَحِيَّة is how you say “greeting” in Arabic.
Root ح ي ي ḥ-y-y. noun (verbal noun / maṣdar of form II). taḥiyyah.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Meaning of greeting in Arabic
- greeting, salutation the standard word for a greeting, including the Islamic legal salutation 'peace be upon you' (salām ʿalayka)
- a wish or prayer for someone's continued life and well-being reflects the underlying sense of the verb ḥayyā, e.g. ḥayyāka llāh, 'may God preserve you alive'
Example sentence
وآخرها تحيّتهم يوم يلقونه سلام
And the final stage is their greeting of peace on the day they meet Him.
تَحِيَّتُهُمْ their greeting
tahiyya means 'greeting'; the ending '-hum' adds 'their' — 'their greeting'.
The English is machine-translated.
Practise this word in the app
One tap gives you the meaning, a grammar note and audio.
Add the words you don’t know. Practise them with spaced repetition.
Free. No ads. No subscription.
An account is needed in the app.
How it is used
Taḥiyyah is the everyday Arabic word for a greeting. It derives from the form II verb ḥayyā, whose primary sense was to wish someone continued life (ḥayyāka llāh, 'may God preserve you alive'); in legal/religious usage this greeting took the specific form of saying salām ʿalayka.
Words from the same root
- حَيِىَ to live, be alive (form I verb)
- حَيَاةٌ life
- حَىٌّ alive, living
- حيّا to greet; to pray for someone's life (form II, the verb taḥiyyah derives from)
- أَحْيَا to give life to, revive (form IV)
- حَيَوَانٌ life, vitality (intensive verbal noun of the same root)
More example sentences
وَقَول الْمُصَلِّي الله أكبر سُبْحَانَ رَبِّي الْعَظِيم سُبْحَانَ رَبِّي الْأَعْلَى سمع الله لمن حَمده رَبنَا وَلَك الْحَمد التَّحِيَّات لله
And the statement of the one praying: (Allah is the Greatest. Glory be to my Lord, the Most Great. Glory be to my Lord, the Most High. Allah listens to the one who praises Him. Our Lord, and to You belongs all praise. All greetings are for Allah.)
التَّحَايَا the greetings
'the greetings, salutations', nominative, opening 'the salutations [are] for God'. A broken plural here; the subject of the closing formula.
Common questions
- How do you say "greeting" in Arabic?
- تَحِيَّة (taḥiyyah).
- What does the root of تَحِيَّة mean?
- It comes from the root ḥ-y-y (ح ي ي), meaning 'to live, be alive' — taḥiyyah literally began as a wish or prayer for someone's life, and came to mean 'greeting'.
Related words
Definitions summarised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).