Arabic vocabulary
How to say “people” in Arabic, with pronunciation and real example sentences from OpenArabic texts.
فقيل لى هذا موسى وقومه،
but it was said to me: This is Moses and his people,
وَقَوْمُهُ — and his people. This is 'and' plus 'his people', with attached 'his' — coordinated into the predicate, 'Moses AND his people'. It shares the nominative. The pronoun ties the community to Moses, identifying the throng as his nation, not the Prophet's.
From: Those Who Enter Without Account →حَتَّى اِنْتَهَيْتُ إِلَى النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَقَدْ رُوِيَ الْقَوْمُ كُلُّهُمْ،
I came to the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and by then the whole group had been given to drink.
الْقَوْمُ — the people. The noun 'the people/group' made definite by 'the', the subject of the passive 'had been given drink'; in a passive, the one acted upon stands as the subject. The definiteness points to the specific company present. It is who received the drinking.
From: Generosity to the Poor →فَلَمَّا تَصَافَّ الْقَوْمُ كَانَ سَيْفُ عَامِرٍ فِيهِ قِصَرٌ،
When the people engaged one another, Amir's sword had a short dagger in it.
الْقَوْمُ — the people. Carries the 'the' marker and acts as the doer of the reciprocal verb before it. It is a collective word for a body of men, so although it is singular in form it stands for a whole group, and the definiteness frames them as the specific fighters already in view.
From: The Martyr's Reward →ثُمَّ أَذِنَ لِعَشَرَةٍ، فَأَكَلَ الْقَوْمُ كُلُّهُمْ وَشَبِعُوا،
Then he permitted ten, and all the people ate and were satisfied.
الْقَوْمُ — the people. The doer of the eating -- 'the people', a collective noun made definite by al- and wearing the bare subject (nominative) ending. Though it means a crowd, it takes a singular-style verb, which is why the verb before it stayed singular.
From: The Barley Loaf That Fed Eighty →وَالْقَوْمُ ثَمَانُونَ رَجُلًا
And the people were eighty men.
وَالْقَوْمُ — and the people. This opens with the joining word wa- ('and') fused onto a noun that already carries al- ('the'), so it is fixed as definite and specific: this particular group. It works as the subject the sentence then counts, and the wa- ties this clause back to the narrative that came before it.
From: The Barley Loaf That Fed Eighty →فَلَمْ يَلْبَثْ الْقَوْمُ إِلَّا قَلِيلاً حَتَّى أَتَى الْجُرْذُ عَلَى الرَدْمِ
So the people had not remained except a little until the rat came onto the mound.
الْقَوْمُ — the people. A definite plural noun and the subject of the (non-)remaining, so it takes the plain naming ending. It is the party the brief interval is told about.
From: Sheba's Garden and Destruction →OpenArabic teaches words like قَوْمُ through real bilingual reading with native audio and spaced-repetition practice.
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