أُمّ mother in Arabic
أُمّ is how you say “mother” in Arabic.
Root ا م م ʾ-m-m. noun. umm.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Meaning of mother in Arabic
- mother the primary and most common sense
- the membrane enveloping the brain used of the head, as in accounts of a head-wound that lays open this part ('he struck the umm of his head')
Example sentence
والأنس بِذكرِهِ كهرب الْحُوت إِلَى المَاء والطفل إِلَى أمه
And finding solace in His remembrance is like the fish's need for water and the child's need for its mother.
أُمِّهِ its mother
'Mother' with '-hi' (its) attached, genitive after 'to'. The one the child instinctively seeks, as the heart seeks God's remembrance.
The English is machine-translated.
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How it is used
أُمّ shares its root with words built on the idea of 'aiming at' or 'heading toward' something, such as إِمَام (a leader followed as a guide or example) and ائتمّ (to follow another's example). The same root also gives أُمّ a specific anatomical sense in classical usage: the membrane covering the brain, referred to when describing a head wound.
Words from the same root
- أَمَّ to aim at, direct oneself toward, intend; also to go before and lead (e.g. in prayer)
- إِمَام leader, exemplar; one whose example is followed
- ائْتَمَّ to follow someone's example, imitate, take as a model
- تَيَمُّم the act of purifying oneself by wiping the face and hands with dust before prayer
- أُمُومَة motherhood, the state of being a mother
- أُمَّة a community, or a way and rule of life followed by a people
More example sentences
وكانت أمه مولاة لأم سلمة؛ زوج النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم،
His mother was a freedwoman of Umm Salama, the wife of the Prophet, peace be upon him.
لِأُمِّ for Umm
The attached particle governs the following name into the prepositional form and sets up the belonging-to relationship: it marks whose freedwoman she was. The name then fronts an 'of' pairing.
قَالَتْ قَتَلْتُ أُمُّكَ،
She said, "I killed your mother."
أُمُّكَ your mother
This noun carries the attached '-ka' (your, masculine), so it means 'your mother' in one word, and it is the one killed, the object of 'I killed'. The suffix points at the man being addressed, identifying the victim by her relation to him, and it makes the noun definite without an al-.
مَا قَدَرْتُ أَنْ أَتَأَمَّلَ أُمِّي مُنْذُ أَسْلَمَتْ
I could not look after my mother since she embraced Islam.
أُمِّي my mother
This noun carries the attached 'my', giving 'my mother', and it is the object of the gazing verb. The possessive suffix makes it definite and ties the mother to the speaker. It is the one he laments he could not properly look upon.
بَعْدَ أَنْ يَخْرُجَ مَا أَرَادَتْ أُمِّي؟
Has what my mother wanted happened?
أُمِّي my mother
This noun carries the attached 'my', giving 'my mother', and it stands as the named subject of 'wanted' inside the relative clause, placed after its verb in the usual Arabic order. The suffix ties the wanting to the speaker's mother and makes the noun definite, identifying whose wish is meant.
وَرَأَى عُمَرُ رَجُلًا يَحْمِلُ أُمَّهُ،
And Umar saw a man carrying his mother,
أُمَّهُ his mother
This noun, 'mother', has the 'his' pronoun on its end, marking her as the man's mother, and stands as the object of 'carrying'. Arabic attaches the owner straight onto the noun. So 'his mother' is what the man bears.
كَانَ يُصَلِّي، فَجَاءَتْهُ أُمُّهُ فَدَعَتْهُ،
He was praying, then his mother came to him and called him.
أُمُّهُ his mother
A noun with a possessor pronoun welded onto its end. The attached '-hu' makes it 'his', and crucially it reaches back to the man praying, not to anyone nearer -- tracking who such a tail-pronoun points to is part of reading Arabic.
Common questions
- How do you say "mother" in Arabic?
- أُمّ (umm).
- What is the connection between umm and imām?
- Both come from the root ا-م-م, whose verb أَمَّ means to aim at, head toward, or lead — imām is literally 'one who is followed toward' or taken as a guide.
Related words
Definitions summarised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).