قَلِيل little in Arabic
قَلِيل is how you say “little” in Arabic.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Example sentence
فَمَا كَانَ إِلَّا الْقَلِيل حَتَّى قدمُوا من السّفر
It was only a little while until they returned from the journey.
الْقَلِيلُ a little while
A noun 'the little [bit]', the subject left after the exception, nominative ('-u'), definite — 'a brief while'. Only a short time passed.
The English is machine-translated.
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More example sentences
قل متاع الدنيا قليل والآخرة خير لمن اتقى
Say: The enjoyment of this world is little, and the hereafter is better for those who fear Allah.
قَلِيلٌ is small
This indefinite adjective is the predicate — 'is little / scant'. The fresh comment stays indefinite and the 'is' is unwritten. So 'the enjoyment of this world is little'.
وَقَوْلُهُمْ لَمَّا انْضَجَ رَمَدَ، مَذْكُورٌ فِي قَوْلِهِ تَعَالَى وَأَعْطَى قَلِيلًا وَأَكْدَى
And their saying: 'As soon as it ripens, it spoils' is mentioned in His saying: 'And gave a little, then withheld.'
قَلِيلًا a little
This is 'a little, a small amount', indefinite, the object of 'gave', so it takes the accusative ending. Here it works as how much was given, the meagre portion. It sets up the contrast with the withholding that follows.
قَلِيلُ الْعِلْمِ بِالْصِّنَاعَةِ ،
He has little knowledge of the craft.
قَلِيلُ little
An adjective meaning 'little/scant', here heading a possessive chain with the next noun to mean 'little of knowledge'. Arabic lets an adjective take an 'of' complement this way; it works as the predicate describing the unnamed subject as deficient in something the following noun names.