“unlikely” in Arabic dialects
adjective
How do you say unlikely across the major spoken Arabic dialects? Compare unlikely (adjective) sense by sense across 5 dialects — Egyptian, Levantine, Gulf, Iraqi, Maghrebi — with English meaning, native script, transliteration and usage.
What does “unlikely” mean?
adjective
- Not likely to be true or to occur or to have occurred“legislation on the question is highly unlikely”
- Has little chance of being the case or coming about“an unlikely story”
- Having a probability too low to inspire belief
English definitions from Princeton WordNet.
Quick comparison across dialects
| Dialect | Arabic (unlikely) | Transliteration |
|---|---|---|
| Egyptian Arabic | مش محتمل | mish muḥtamal |
| Levantine Arabic | مش محتمل | mish muḥtamal |
| Gulf Arabic | بعيد | baʿīd |
| Iraqi Arabic | مو محتمل | mū muḥtamal |
| Maghrebi Arabic | صعيب | ṣʿib |
Full breakdown by dialect
Egyptian Arabic
| Word (Arabic) | Transliteration | English sense / usage |
|---|---|---|
| مش محتمل | mish muḥtamal | not probable |
| صعب | ṣaʿb | improbable, difficult to imagine |
Levantine Arabic
| Word (Arabic) | Transliteration | English sense / usage |
|---|---|---|
| مش محتمل | mish muḥtamal | not probable, unlikely |
| صعب | ṣaʿb | unlikely (lit. difficult) |
| بعيد | bʿīd | unlikely, improbable (lit. far) |
Gulf Arabic
| Word (Arabic) | Transliteration | English sense / usage |
|---|---|---|
| بعيد | baʿīd | improbable, unlikely, remote possibility |
| صعب | ṣaʿb | hard to imagine, unlikely |
Iraqi Arabic
| Word (Arabic) | Transliteration | English sense / usage |
|---|---|---|
| مو محتمل | mū muḥtamal | unlikely, not probable |
| مستبعد | mustabʿad | unlikely, ruled out |
Maghrebi Arabic
| Word (Arabic) | Transliteration | English sense / usage |
|---|---|---|
| صعيب | ṣʿib | difficult to happen, improbable |
| بعيد | bʿid | a remote possibility, unlikely (Algerian/Tunisian) |
| من المستبعد | min l-mustabʿad | improbable (closer to formal) |
Need a custom bilingual dictionary built?
We build sense-tagged dictionaries and word lists across languages and dialects for publishers, app makers and localization teams — to your spec, in CSV, XLSX or print-ready formats.