قِلَّةٌ lack in Arabic
قِلَّةٌ is how you say “lack” in Arabic.
Root ق ل ل q-l-l. noun (verbal noun / maṣdar). qillah.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Meaning of lack in Arabic
- paucity, fewness, or smallness in number, quantity, or amount; scantiness
- lack, want of due amount of something often the best rendering of qillah, as in qillat mubālāh, 'lack of due care'; Lane notes it can also be equivalent to ʿadam, 'absence, non-existence'
Example sentence
قلّة التَّوْفِيق وَفَسَاد الرَّأْي وخفاء الْحق وَفَسَاد الْقلب
Lack of success, distortion of opinion, obscurity of truth, and corruption of the heart.
قِلَّةُ lack
Heads an 'of…' possessive phrase: 'lack of…'; the next word says what is lacking.
The English is machine-translated.
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How it is used
Qillah is the abstract noun tied to the verb qalla ('to be few/little'), so it spans paucity, scantiness, and lack. In set phrases like qillat mubālāh ('lack of due care') it works much like the English word 'lack'; Lane also records it as sometimes equivalent to ʿadam, 'absence' or 'non-existence'.
Words from the same root
- قَلَّ to be or become few, small, or scanty in number or amount (form I)
- قَلِيلٌ few, little, scanty; a small quantity of something
- أَقَلُّ fewer, less (elative)
- قُلٌّ poverty
- أَقَلَّ to become poor, to have little property (form IV)
- قَلَّلَهُ to make it, or consider it, little (form II)
- مُسْتَقِلٌّ independent, self-managing, standing alone (form X active participle)
Common questions
- How do you say "lack" in Arabic?
- قِلَّةٌ (qillah).
- What is the difference between qillah and qalīl?
- Qillah (قِلَّةٌ) is the abstract noun meaning 'lack, paucity, fewness,' while qalīl (قَلِيلٌ) is the adjective 'few, little, scanty' used to describe something that has little of a thing.
Related words
Definitions summarised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).