نام
nāma/naː.ma/
The Arabic verb for go to sleep is نام (nāma), to sleep or to go to bed.
نام is the basic verb for falling asleep or going to bed for the night. Like other Arabic verbs it is listed in its past tense form, he slept and changes to say I sleep, go to sleep and so on.
Which one should you use?
اذهب للنوم is a direct and formal way to tell someone go to sleep, literally go to the sleep.
Is it said differently in some regions?
In Gulf Arabic people say اطفي اللمبة ونام, turn off the lamp and sleep.
How does it change in a sentence?
نام is the past tense, he slept and ينام is the present tense, he sleeps. To tell one man to go to sleep, use the command نَمْ. For a woman, say نامي.
How do you pronounce it?
The IPA is /naː.ma/, two syllables with a long a in the first.
What mistakes should you avoid?
Do not use نام as a command in formal Arabic. To tell someone to go to sleep, use نَمْ for a man or نامي for a woman.
Did you know?
- Instead of telling someone to 'go to sleep', it is much more common to use the poetic phrase تصبح على خير, which literally translates to 'may you wake up to goodness'.
- In Arabic, the word for 'dream' حلم can also mean 'to imagine' or 'to hallucinate'. This creates a linguistic overlap between the act of sleeping and the act of imagining while awake.
- The root of نام is a cognate of the Hebrew word נָם. Both words descend from a common ancient Semitic ancestor.
Examples in context
- أنَامْ أَوْ أَقْرَءْ.I go to sleep or read.أنَامْ means I sleep, the present tense form for I.
Sources
- Pronunciation: Wiktionary entry نام, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries نام, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Wiktionary CC BY-SA 4.0.
