ذُنُوب sins in Arabic
ذُنُوب is how you say “sins” in Arabic.
Root ذ ن ب dh-n-b. noun (broken plural of ذَنْب, itself a verbal noun / maṣdar). dhunūb.
Arabic
English
The audio uses AI voices.
Meaning of sins in Arabic
- sins, crimes, faults, misdeeds, transgressions, or acts of disobedience plural of ذَنْب; covers both intentional and inadvertent wrongdoing, making it broader than إِثْم, which denotes specifically intentional sin
- offences that separate a person from God's favour, or blameworthy deeds when done knowingly a secondary characterization of ذَنْب given by lexicographers alongside the general 'sin/crime/fault' sense
Example sentence
فَإِن آخذه بذنوبه رأى عدله،
So if He takes him to account for his sins, he sees His justice,
بِذُنُوبِهِ for his sins
bi- = 'with, for'; dhunub means 'sins' (plural); the ending '-hi' adds 'his' — 'for his sins'.
The English is machine-translated.
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How it is used
ذُنُوب is simply the plural of ذَنْب, the standard classical word for sin or wrongdoing. Lexicographers note it is wider than إِثْم: a ذَنْب may be committed knowingly or through inadvertence, whereas إِثْم is specifically deliberate — a distinction worth keeping in mind when the word appears in religious or moral contexts (e.g. seeking forgiveness for one's ذنوب).
Words from the same root
- ذَنَبٌ tail; the hind or base part of a thing (the root's literal, physical sense)
- ذَنَّبَ form II: to add a trailing appendage — e.g. to let part of a turban hang like a tail, or to append a closing section to a piece of writing
- أَذْنَبَ form IV: to commit a sin, to become guilty of a fault
- تَذَنَّبَ form V: to accuse someone of a sin they did not commit; also, to approach a road or valley from its far/trailing end
- اسْتَذْنَبَ form X: to find someone guilty of a sin, or to impute a fault to them
- ذَانَبَتْ form III: said of a mare in a specific state during parturition
More example sentences
فَيرى كل مَا يسرّه من فضل الله، وكل مَا يسوءه من ذنوبه وَعدل الله فِيهِ
Thus, he sees everything that pleases him as from the grace of Allah, and everything that displeases him as from his sins and the justice of Allah upon him.
ذُنُوبِهِ his sins
dhunub means 'sins' (plural); the ending '-hi' adds 'his' — 'his sins'.
وتمتنع فِيمَا يسْتَقْبل من الذُّنُوب
And you refrain in the future from sins.
الذُّنُوبِ sins
A broken plural, its singular's vowels recast for 'sins', held in the genitive by the preposition. The 'the' generalizes it to wrongdoing as a whole, what one keeps clear of going forward.
يَا ابْنَ آدَمَ لَوْ بَلَغَتْ ذُنُوبُك عَنَانَ السَّمَاءِ ثُمَّ اسْتَغْفَرْتنِي غَفَرْتُ لَك،
O son of Adam! If your sins were to reach the clouds of the sky and then you were to ask for My forgiveness, I would forgive you.
ذُنُوبُكَ your sins
This is a 'broken' plural — the singular is reshaped from within rather than given an ending — and as a non-human plural it counts as feminine singular for the verb, which is why 'reach' took the '-at' ending. The -u marks it the subject; the tail is 'your'.
والبنين وكم صغر قاسى الأب لأجل الصغار، فلما ترقوا فعقوا والعقوق من الذنوب الكبار،
And the children, how much hardship the father endures for the sake of the young; but when they grow up, they disobey, and disobedience is among the grave sins,
الذُّنُوبِ the sins
In the genitive because the 'among' before it governs it, this names the category disobedience is placed in. The 'the' makes it the known general class of sins, and the describing word that follows narrows it to the grave ones.
فَإِنَّهُمْ قَدْ يَشْهَدُونَ مَا يُقَدَّرُ عَلَى أَحَدِهِمْ مِنَ الْمَعَاصِيِ وَالذُّنُوبِ
So they may witness the sins and wrongdoings that are decreed upon any one of them.
وَالذُّنُوبِ and the wrongdoings
The wa- links a second category and the al- makes it definite, staying genitive within the same partitive 'from'. It pairs faults with sins as the things decreed upon a person, both examples of the general 'what is decreed'.
Common questions
- How do you say "sins" in Arabic?
- ذُنُوب (dhunūb) — the plural of ذَنْب (dhanb), meaning sin, crime, fault, or transgression.
- What is the singular of ذُنُوب؟
- ذَنْبٌ (dhanb) — a single sin, crime, fault, or act of disobedience.
Related words
Definitions summarised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).