Arabic Dictionaries

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Page last Updated: 25th November 2011

Many, many more dictionaries to come!

Arabic-English Dictionary: The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic
Paperback - 1301 pages - A Compact Version of the Internationally Recognised Fourth Edition

This edition is intended to meet the demand of students and scholars for a compact, well bound, econimcally priced version of 'A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic.'

It contains all of the entries of the larger, hard bound, 4th edition. This dictionary presents the vocabulary and phraseology of modern written Arabic. It is based on the form of the language which, throughout the Arab world from Iraq to Morocco, is found in the prose of books, newspapers, periodicals, and letters. This form is also employed in formal public address, over radio and television, and in religious ceremonial.

The dictionary will be most useful to those working with writings that have appeared since the turn of the century. The morphology and syntax of written Arabic are essentially the same in all Arabic countries. Vocabulary differences are limited mainly to the domain of specialised vocabulary. Thus the written language continues, as it has done throughout centuries of the past, to ensure the linguistic unity of the Arabic world. From its inception, this dictionary has been compiled on scientific descriptive principles. It contains only words and expressions which were found in context during the course of wide reading in literature of every kind or which, on the basis of other evidence, can be shown to be unquestionably a part of the present day vocabulary. Consequently, it not only lists classical words and phrases of elegant rhetorical style side by side with new coinages that conform to the demands of the purists, but it also contains neologisms, loan translations, foreign loans, and colloquialisms which may not be to the linguistic taste of many educated Arabs. But since they occur in the corpus of materials on which the dictionary is based, they are included here.

''It is a great pleasure to be able to recommend this dictionary wholeheartedly. Its scholarship, accuracy and reliabilty make it one of the most significant contributions to Arabic lexicography. It is hoped that this masterpiece willpoint the way to wider use of modern lexicographical principles in the compilation of dictionaries for earlier periods of the Arabic language. ''
----The Linguistic Society of America

[PAPERBACK]
Our Price £42.95 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY

Misbah ul Lughat : Arabic - Urdu Dictionary

Hardback - 1064 pages

The popular Arabic - Urdu dictionary. Contains over 50,000 words.

This new Al-Misbah (Lahore) edition (LEFT) is smaller in size and thinner, making it less bulkier than previous editions.

Includes word-meanings and root words of each word

Contains over 50,000 words.

This book does not contain any English!
Our Price £14.95 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY

AL-MAWRID : (English-Arabic / Arabic-English Dictionary)

Hardback - 2500 pages

Compiled by Mounir Baalbaki & Dr Rouhi Baalbaki

Containing over 200,000 entries, it is by far the most comprehensive bilingual Arabic-English and English-Arabic lexicon.

Reviews:

''The Mawrid Arabic-English dictionary is a complete dictionary, certainly the best published in the Middle East. It works in alphabetical order, which is good for the beginner as well as for the intermediate learner who's searched through a root-order dictionary without success for a word.''

''The Mawrid Dictionary is a real help especially for the Beginners in Arabic. Why? The Arabic words are sorted alphabetically instead according to the roots (e.g. bait=House, is typically a tough job to find as it has to be looked up normally below ba - ya - ta; whereby the middle letter ya is weak). The content of words is oriented to newspapers rather than to classical Arabic texts where it is also helpful but what would need to understand the systems of roots in Arabic to properly understand the complexity of meaning. This dictionary is helping therefore beginners to find up words easily as well as advanced translators for modern standard Arabic.''

Published by Dar El--Ilmalayin, Beirut, Lebanon

Our Price £59.99 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY

A Dictionary of Islamic Terms Arabic- English

A4 Hardback - 455 pages by Deeb al-Khudrawi

Well Presented in two colour and friendly script

A handy reference guide for times when one comes across an unfamiliar Arabic term. Helpful in the study of Qur'an and Hadith.

Compilers Preface:

There are many dictionaries concerning many fields of life, but we do not yet have an explanatory dictionary regarding Islamic Terms. So I have tried to fill that gap with this dictionary and hopefully give the readers a sufficient ground towards a better understanding of Islam. In essence I hope you readers will become enlightened.

As to the contents of this dictionary; it contains various aspects of Islam, such as Qur'anic words (illustrated by some verses from the Noble Qur'an), the Sunnah of the Beloved Prophet Muhammad May Allah Bless him and Grant him peace, the worship, marriage, divorce, our heritage, the terms of Fiqh, the prohibited and unprohibited in Islam, the sources of legislation of Islam and many other important issues.---Deeb al-Khudrawi

Published by al-Yamamah, Damascus.

Our Price £16.95 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY

Hans Wehr ARABIC-ENGLISH Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

Hardback - 1307 pages

Compiled by Hans Wehr
Edited by J Milton Cowan

The work is compiled on descriptive principles: only words and expressions that are attested in context are included. "It was chiefly based on combing modern works of Arabic literature for lexical items, rather than culling them from medieval Arabic dictionaries, like what Lane had done in the nineteenth century".

The dictionary arranges its entries according to the traditional Arabic root order. Foreign words are listed in straight alphabetical order by the letters of the word.

"Of all the dictionaries of modern written Arabic, the work [in question] ... is the best."

Our Price £24.95 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY

Goodword Arabic English Dictionary

A5 Paperback - 503 pages Compiled by Mohammed Harun Rashid

Description from the publisher :The Goodword Arabic-English Dictionary provides a detailed picture of the Arabic language. With over twenty thousand words and phrases, there is a wealth of information on the central core of Arabic vocabulary, and much more besides.

* Unique three column layout makes information easy to find, easy to understand

* More than 20,000 words and phrases

* Modern written Arabic

* Easy access to the meaning you want.

The Goodword Arabic-English Dictionary is an indispensable reference book for all students from intermediate level upwards. Its exceptionally clear layout and detailed treatment of the modern Arabic language, make it the ideal Arabic language reference book.

Our Price £9.95 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY

Goodword English Arabic Dictionary
A5 Paperback - 820 pages Compiled by Mohammed Harun Rashid

Description from the publisher :

The Goodword English-Arabic Dictionary provides a detailed picture of the Arabic language.

With over twenty thousand words and phrases, there is a wealth of information on the central core of Arabic vocabulary, and much more besides.

*Unique three column layout makes information easy to find.

*Easy to understand.

*More than 20,000 words and phrases, idiomatic spoken Arabic.

*Easy access to the meaning you want.

The Goodword English-Arabic Dictionary is an indispensable reference book for all students from intermediate level upwards. Its exceptionally clear layout and detailed treatment of the modern Arabic language, make it the ideal Arabic language reference book.

Our Price £12.95 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY

Oxford Essential Arabic Dictionary -

Paperback - 388 pages

English-Arabic & Arabic-English

The Oxford Essential Arabic Dictionary is a brand-new compact Arabic-English and English-Arabic dictionary that offers up-to-date coverage of essential day-to-day vocabulary and includes more than 16,000 words and phrases, carefully selected according to frequency of use.

Portable and easy to use, this dictionary is designed for both English and Arabic speakers and is ideal for business, travel, and quick reference. For Arabic and English speakers there are many user-friendly features. For Modern Standard Arabic, vowels are included in the headwords to help with pronunciation, and headwords are ordered alphabetically rather than by the more traditional root order. For English, phonetic transcriptions are given for every headword. In both sides of the dictionary there is clear help for words that have more than one meaning. There is also a supplement giving extra help for tricky areas such as English irregular verbs, Arabic verb forms, and Arabic numbers Presented with a brilliantly clear and open design, the Oxford Essential Arabic Dictionary is the ideal companion for anyone needing a reliable and portable Arabic-English and English-Arabic Dictionary for business, travel, and home.

Our Price £11.99 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY

The HANS WEHR Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

Large Hardback - 1130 pages ARABIC - ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Edited by J.M. Cowan

Published July 2011

Its scholarship, accuracy and reliability make it one of the most significant contributions to Arabic lexicography. It is hoped that this masterpiece will point the way ot wider use of modern lexicographical principles in the compilation of dictionaries for earlier periods of the Arabic language.

''One of the Best and most Popular Of all the dictionaries of modern written Arabic''

The work is compiled on descriptive principles: only words and expressions that are attested in context are included "It was chiefly based on combing modern works of Arabic literature for lexical items, rather than culling them from medieval Arabic dictionaries, which was what Lane had done in the nineteenth century"

All new entries have been derived from primary sources, i.e. from running contexts. The source texts, predominately from the last ten years, cover a broad spectrum of content, style and origin, thereby providing a representative cross section of modern usage encountered in various fields such as technology, economics, sports, medicine, the oil industry and the natural sciences, as well as creative literature. Particular use was made of texts from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia which were drawn from newspapers, periodicals, textbooks, official and private documents and belles-lettres; some use was also made of the press of the northwest African countries. The number of new entries, including lemmata as well as compounds, idiomatic phrases and new definitions of head words, runs to approximately 13,000. Moreover, in about 3,000 instances, smaller additions (new transcriptions, plural forms, prepositional government of verbs, cross-references, etc.) have been inserted, errors corrected, obsolete entries eliminated. Some lemmata have been completely reworked.

Words are in root order. This really is the best method as all students of Arabic will know.

Reviews

The reliability and completeness of the work deserve every praise, as does the practical arrangement of the entries. ---Bibliotheca Orientalis

There can be no doubt that...it is a basic tool for study of modern Arabic. ---Middle East Journal

Book Dimensions : 24.4 x 17 x 5.9cm

Our Price £48.99 INCLUSIVE OF UK DELIVERY