xebah

Maltese

Root
x-b-h
5 terms

Alternative forms

• xebaħ (unofficial, but common)

Etymology

From Arabic شَبِهَ (šabiha), أَشْبَهَ (ʔašbaha).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈʃɛbaħ/

Verb

xebah (imperfect jixbah)

1. to resemble; to be similar to

Conjugation

• The sound /ħ/ is kept in all conjugated forms. The spelling is h instead of ħ because this fortition has not been generalised throughout the root (compare xbieha /ˈʒbɪːja/).
• The perfect tense is highly archaic and not part of contemporary standard Maltese. It is replaced with kien + imperfect.

Conjugation of xebah
		singular				plural
		1st person	2nd person	3rd person		1st person	2nd person	3rd person
perfect	m	xbaht	xbaht	xebah		xbahna	xbahtu	xebhu
	f			xebhet
imperfect	m	nixbah	tixbah	jixbah		nixbhu	tixbhu	jixbhu
	f			tixbah
imperative			ixbah				ixbhu

Related terms

• xbieha
• xebbah
• xebh