Arabic vocabulary
How to say “mind” in Arabic, with pronunciation and real example sentences from OpenArabic texts.
وَكَفَى بِهَذَا الْقَدْرِ مَدْحًا لِلْعَقْلِ وَذَمًّا لِلْهَوَى
This alone is sufficient to praise reason and criticize desire.
لِلْعَقْلِ — for reason. The li- aims the praise at its recipient and governs the genitive; it has absorbed the noun's 'the' into a single written word.
From: The Discipline of Foresight →وَالآدَمِيُّ يَمْتَنِعُ عَنْ ذَلِكَ بِقَهْرِ عَقْلِهِ لِطَبْعِهِ
And the human refrains from that by subduing his nature with reason.
عَقْلِهِ — his reason. A subtle pairing: 'his reason' is the owner completing 'the overpowering BY his reason' — reason is the tool doing the subduing, even though it sits in the owner slot.
From: The Discipline of Foresight →وَجَبَ عَلَيْهِ أَنْ يَرْفَعَ كُلَّ حَادِثَةٍ إِلَى حَاكِمِ الْعَقْلِ
He must refer every occurrence to the judge of reason.
الْعَقْلِ — reason. The owner finishing 'the judge of reason'; genitive, holding the 'the' for the pair.
From: The Discipline of Foresight →الذِّكرُ في الإسلامِ ليسَ أصواتًا فارغة، بل معانٍ مكتملة تُنطَق في جُملٍ تامَّة تُغذّي العقلَ والقلب
Remembrance in Islam is not empty sounds, but complete meanings articulated in complete sentences that nourish the mind and heart.
العَقْلَ — the mind. 'the mind', accusative as the object being nourished. The ending marks it as what receives the action.
From: Words That Nourish the Heart →فإن برعت في الأصول وتوابعها من المنطق والحكمة والفلسفة، وآراء الأوائل ومجازات العقول،
So if you excel in the fundamentals and their appendages of logic, wisdom, philosophy, and the views of the ancients and the metaphors of minds,
العُقُولِ — minds. This noun, minds, is the owner half closing the final pairing, 'figurative readings of minds', genitive and definite. It ends the long itemized list of fields the addressee might master.
From: Unity Over Partisanship →ولفقت بين العقل والنقل،
And you reconcile between reason and revelation,
العَقْلِ — reason. This noun, reason, is the first of the two things linked by 'between', genitive and definite by 'al-'. It is one pole of the reconciliation the preposition sets up.
From: Unity Over Partisanship →لأن الغضب يذهب العقل، ويستر البصيرة،
Because anger takes away reason and veils insight.
ٱلْعَقْلَ — reason. The definite object of 'takes away', in the object form, its 'the' marking the mind or reason as a known whole. It is what anger removes.
From: Restraining Anger →وَقَالَ لُقْمَانُ غَايَةُ الشَّرَفِ وَالسُّؤْدُدِ حُسْنُ الْعَقْلِ
Luqman said, 'The highest honor and distinction is a sound mind.'
الْعقل — of the mind. Definite by 'al-' and serving as the owner-word in 'soundness of the mind', so it sits in the genitive as the second noun of that pairing. The two nouns together give the 'of' relationship with no separate word. It names the faculty whose soundness is the highest honour.
From: On Reason and Temptation →OpenArabic teaches words like عَقْل through real bilingual reading with native audio and spaced-repetition practice.
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