Arabic vocabulary
تَوَاضُع is how you say “humility” in Arabic. Hear it pronounced and see it used in real example sentences from classical texts below.
فإنك جاهل خبل فداوم بالله على التواضع الزائد ،
For surely you are ignorant and foolish, so persist in excessive humility with God,
التَّوَاضُعِ — the humility. The al- marks this definite, 'the humility', and it sits in the possessed ending forced by 'ala before it: 'in the humility'. The noun names the trait the addressee is told to hold to.
From: True Devotion →التَّواضُعُ أَحَبَّ إِلَيْهِ مِنَ الشَّرَفِ
Humility is more beloved to him than honor.
التَّواضُعُ — humility. Built on a verbal-noun pattern that turns an action into a thing, here the quality of lowering oneself, and made definite by 'al-'. It is the subject of a verbless 'X is more loved than Y' comparison. Naming a behaviour as an abstract noun lets the sentence weigh it against its opposite.
From: On Reason and Temptation →OpenArabic teaches words like تَوَاضُع through real bilingual reading with native audio and spaced-repetition practice.
Get the app