Arabic word sheet
أَغْنَى
To be of use, to suffice someone
- Type
- verb
- Root
- غ ن ي
Meaning and usage
To be of use, to suffice someone
Said of a thing or a person that truly serves someone, stands in for what he lacks; it is often met negated, to say that a thing was of no use at all.
مَا أَغْنَى الْمِصْبَاحُ عَنْ سَامِي شَيْئًا فِي الظَّلَامِ.
The lamp was of no use at all to Sami in the dark.
To spare someone something, to make it unnecessary
To bring it about that someone no longer needs a thing: what he has is enough and the other thing becomes superfluous.
أَغْنَى الْهَاتِفُ لَيْلَى عَنِ السَّفَرِ.
The phone spared Layla the journey.
To enrich
To give someone enough to live on amply, to make him rich or put him beyond want.
أَغْنَتِ التِّجَارَةُ الْجَارَ.
Trade made the neighbour rich.
Word family
What the root means غ ن ي
The basic verb means to be free from want: to have enough, or to be rich. The headword is its active side, putting someone beyond need, hence to suffice, to spare and to enrich; wealth, the rich person, usefulness and doing without a thing come from the same idea.
to be rich, to be free from want
غَنِيَ
wealth, sufficiency
غِنًى
rich
غَنِيٌّ
to do without, to have no need of
اِسْتَغْنَى
usefulness, sufficing
غَنَاءٌ
the state of needing nothing
غُنْيَةٌ
Synonyms
to suffice
كَفَى
The most common verb for “to suffice”: it only says that the amount is enough, without the idea of a service rendered or of enriching.
to be enough, to stand in for
أَجْزَأَ
Close to the headword in its sense of “to suffice, to stand in for”: rarer and more technical, it is said of what validly replaces something else.
Opposites
to impoverish (opposite of the sense “to enrich”)
أَفْقَرَ