ħaġa
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Maltese[edit]
| Root |
|---|
| ħ-w-ġ |
| 5 terms |
Etymology[edit]
From Arabic حاجة (ḥāja, “need, necessity”). The sense “thing” is present in many Arabic dialects, including all African ones. It originated as a generalization of “necessity” in the sense of “thing[s] needed for some purpose”. Some of those dialects make a distinction in the plural between حاجَات (ḥājāt, “things”) and حَوائِج (ḥawāʔij, “clothes”), but in Maltese the broken form is used for both senses.