Arabic word sheet
قَرْيَةٌ
Town, village
- Type
- noun
- Root
- ق ر ي
Meaning and usage
Town, village
A place where people live, made of houses grouped together, smaller than a big city. Today it is the usual word for a village.
وُلِدَ رَامِي فِي قَرْيَةٍ صَغِيرَةٍ.
Rami was born in a small village.
City
In older usage the word is also said of a large town, of any built place where a population is settled.
وَصَلَ التُّجَّارُ إِلَى قَرْيَةٍ كَبِيرَةٍ عَامِرَةٍ.
The merchants reached a large, populous city.
Plural
قُرًى
Word family
What the root means ق ر ي
The root is about gathering in one place. From it come the built place where people live together, and the one who dwells there as opposed to the desert dweller.
villager
قَرَوِيٌّ
dweller in a settled place
قَارٍ
settled community
قَارِيَةٌ
to keep to the villages
أَقْرَى
hospitality given to a guest
قِرًى
Synonyms
town, country
بَلَدٌ
Broader: it is said of any town, large or small, and even of a whole country.
city
مَدِينَةٌ
Names a larger and more important town than the place the headword names.
large town, metropolis
مِصْرٌ
Said of a big town that gathers a region around it; a word of older usage.