Al Mawrid (English-Arabic dictionary) [Hardcover]

Mounir Baalbaki (Author), Mounir Baalbaki (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1999 | ISBN-10: 1894412885 | ISBN-13: 978-1894412889 | Edition: 33

The most authoritative and up-to date dictionary which has become the standard work in its field. It contains about 100.000 entries, and extremely rich in idioms and technical terms. Its appendices include proverbs, biographical entries, abbreviations etc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1328 pages
• Publisher: Dar El Ilm Lilmalayin; 33 edition (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1894412885
• ISBN-13: 978-1894412889
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,207,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very useful to learners of Arabic, February 23, 2001

By 

J. E. S. Leake "sailor and scholar" (Offshore, Persian Gulf) - See all my reviews

This review is from: AL Mawrid (Arabic-English Dictionary) (Hardcover)

The Mawrid Arabic-English is a good, complete dictionary, perhaps - no, 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 major flaw with this book is that it's aimed at Arab readers and as a result, simple grammatical information like broken plurals or masdars is not shown with the base noun or verb. Learners of Arabic will find the root-order Wehr more useful, but if they can afford two, buy this too, especially as Wehr hasn't been updated in over 25 years while the Mawrid is frequently updated. (I own both.)

The Mawrid English-Arabic dictionary is perhaps the best available because, though the Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary of Current Usage is more useful to learners of Arabic for reasons of Arabic grammatical content, the Oxford is 40 years old and the language had expanded significantly. Again, buy both, but here the Mawrid English-Arabic would be my first choice (you can always use Wehr to look up the grammatical info).

48 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Al-Mawrid Qaamus, June 14, 2001

By 

Haseeb - See all my reviews

This review is from: AL Mawrid (Arabic-English Dictionary) (Hardcover)

A few years ago, a brother at a masjid gave this dictionary to me as a gift. Before that, the Hans Wehr dictionary was all I had to go on. Since this dictionary isn't based on the three consonant root system, there is no need to know the root of an arabic word before looking it up. There have been quite a few words which I could not find in my Hans Wehr because I simply didn't know the root. I use this dictionary to look up words when I don't know the root. Once a word is found, I can easily find the root by looking at the arabic definition and similar words provided. Knowing the root enables me to use my Hans Wehr in order to find the verb forms, examples of usage, and more elaborate definitions in english.

This dictionary doesn't give the verb forms and the definitions are not that detailed because examples of word usage is nonexistent. The book is also too large and a real pain in the neck to carry around. It's good for looking up words quickly and finding roots, but for more serious study of arabic there is no substitute for the Hans Wehr dictionary of modern written arabic.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars DO NOT BUY!, August 11, 2007

By 

Aldo D'Ottavio - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Al-Mawrid Al-Qareeb, A Pocket Arabic-English and English-Arabic Dictionary (Paperback)

If you want Al-Mawrid, buy the hardcover version; do not buy Al-Quareeb Al-Mawrid, which is a shoddy knock-off.

1) The very positive reviews of this book on amazon are for a DIFFERENT BOOK! The first few reviews are labelled so, and later reviews, while not so labelled, refer to features like the "The fine hardcover binding..." and "... a dictionary for Arabic and English brovrebs [sic: proverbs] - translated back and forth" which are not included in this paperback edition. Also, both books have the same number of reviews. Without having checked all the reviews individually, I believe Amazon has cross-linked the reviews of the hardback version to the paperback version as if they were the same aside from the binding, but THEY ARE NOT.

2) The typeset is too small - if you are not fairly familiar with the basic arabic script, you will have difficulty discerning the Arabic spelling of some words.

3) The English-Arabic portion is poorly organized for translation into Arabic. For example, the entry "flush" is followed by 16 definitions, without English equivalents or indication of parts of speech. Multiple undifferentiated definitions of English words are common. The book appears to be an Arabic dictionary of English and an English dictionary of Arabic bound together. If you are a student of Arabic and need to translate English words into Arabic, this dictionary is of little use.

4) The paperback edition currently being shipped is VERY poorly bound. The first time I opened the book a dozen pages fell out of it, and more have fallen out since then. I have now owned this book about three weeks.