أَلْف thousand in Arabic
أَلْف is how you say “thousand” in Arabic.
Root ا ل ف ʾ-l-f. noun (cardinal numeral). ʾalf.
Arabic
English
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Meaning of thousand in Arabic
- thousand; the cardinal number 1,000 Used as a counting noun, e.g. for large quantities of property or livestock.
- a specific gift-quantity of a thousand (camels, goods) Reflected in the related verb أَلَفَهُ, 'he gave him a thousand', of articles of property or camels.
Example sentence
لحظة أثمرت حرارة القلق ألف سنة،
A moment bore the heat of anxiety for a thousand years.
أَلْفَ thousand
alf means 'a thousand'; object form here, counting the next word ('a thousand years').
The English is machine-translated.
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How it is used
أَلْفٌ is used purely as the numeral 'a thousand', e.g. counting camels or goods given as gifts (cf. the verb أَلَفَهُ, 'he gave him a thousand'). It shares its triliteral root with a distinct cluster of senses centred on familiarity, cleaving to a place, and uniting people, which is the root's more prominent semantic field in Lane's entry.
Words from the same root
- أَلِفَ to keep to, cleave to a place or thing; to become familiar, accustomed (form I verb)
- أَلَّفَ to unite, bring people together, cause companionship between them (form II verb)
- إِلْفٌ an intimate friend, familiar companion
- أُلْفَةٌ familiarity, union, companionship
- إِيلَافٌ the keeping to or frequenting of something habitually; a covenant or safeguard (Qur'anic term for Quraysh's trade journeys)
- مُؤَلِّفٌ one who unites or composes; author, compiler
More example sentences
فقيل لي هذه أمتك، ومعهم سبعون ألفاً يدخلون الجنة بغير حساب ولا عذاب
And it was said to me: This is your nation, and with them are seventy thousand who will enter Paradise without account or punishment.
أَلْفًا thousand
This is the counted noun after 'seventy', and by the fixed rule for numbers from 11 to 99 it comes SINGULAR and accusative — literally 'seventy thousand', one 'thousand' standing for the whole. The singular accusative is grammar, not a count of one.
فيقال من كل ألف تسعمائة وتسعة وتسعون،
It will be said: 'From every thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine,'
أَلْفٍ thousand
This completes 'every thousand', in the genitive as owner. So the ratio is reckoned per thousand of humankind.
فقال الرجل أنا أذهب إليه وأخبره أني اشتريت قصرًا في الجنة بعشرين ألفًا، فلعلّه يعطيني مثلها
So the man said: I will go to him and tell him that I have bought a palace in Paradise for twenty thousand, perhaps he will give me the same.
أَلْفًا thousand
A counted noun after 'twenty'; after the twenties through nineties Arabic puts the counted noun in the singular accusative, the -an you hear, rather than a plural. So one singular word stands for the whole count.
فذهب إلى الوزير وقال له إني اشتريت قصرًا في الجنة بعشرين ألف درهم
So he went to the minister and said to him: I have bought a palace in Paradise for twenty thousand dirhams.
أَلْفِ thousand
Here 'thousand' heads an 'of' chain with 'dirham' after it, so this counted word itself takes the genitive -i forced by the earlier 'twenty', and then owns the dirham that follows.
Common questions
- How do you say "thousand" in Arabic?
- أَلْف (ʾalf).
- Is أَلْف (thousand) related to إِلْفٌ (companion)?
- They share the same triliteral root ا ل ف, but أَلْف is used purely as the numeral 'thousand', while إِلْفٌ, أُلْفَة, and أَلِفَ carry the root's other core sense of familiarity and union.
Related words
Definitions summarised from Lane's Arabic-English Lexicon (E. W. Lane, 1863–1893).