# To be a virgin



## Andrew___

May I ask how we say "He is a virgin"/"She is a virgin" in MSA and Egyptian dialect.

I only know in MSA:
هو عذر
هي عذرة

Very grateful for your assistance.


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## M-Pink

I've never heard anyone saying in Arabic: He is a virgin 

But She is a virgin- if I'm not wrong- is the same in Egyptian dialect

in Palestinian we also say:

هي عذرة

هي عدرا
or
هي بكر


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## Josh_

In the Egyptian dialect you can simply say هي بنت (hiyya bint).  It is literally "she is a girl" but also has the connotation/association of virginity, especially in the right context, like if the discussion is about virginity.  The same does not apply for هو ولد, as far as I'm aware.  

But if you want to be more specific, I believe you can also say هي بنت بكر (hiyya bint bikr) or just هي بكر, as M-Pink related.  I would think one could also say هو بكر, but as male virginity is not as prized as female virginity I imagine it is rare.


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## Abu Rashid

> In the Egyptian dialect you can simply say هي بنت (hiyya bint). It is literally "she is a girl" but also has the connotation/association of virginity,



Wouldn't that be anisa?


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## Little_LIS

Andrew___ said:


> May I ask how we say "He is a virgin"/"She is a virgin" in MSA and Egyptian dialect.
> 
> I only know in MSA:
> هو عذر
> هي عذرة
> 
> Very grateful for your assistance.


 
In MSA, هي عذراء , I'm not sure about عذرة!

In 3ameyya, we may say عزراء or بنت or "انسه" as a title like "Miss"  انسه مريم Miss Mariam.

We never say a virgin guy !


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## Andrew___

Thanks everyone.  That is very helpful, and I'm very grateful to you. 

Andrew


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## cherine

Abu Rashid said:


> Wouldn't that be anisa?


We say آنسة when the context is about not having been married. And we use bent بنت when we're talking about virginity.

Josh, we don't say هو ولد for a virgin man. As the others said, we don't have that concept of "male virginity", or a guy loosing his virginity. This would sound very strange to many people.


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## Josh_

cherine said:


> Josh, we don't say هو ولد for a virgin man.


Yes, of course, I am aware of that.  I was explaining it in so as to avoid anyone erroneously extrapolating from "hiyya bint" that "huwwa walad" could be used.



> As the others said, we don't have that concept of "male virginity", or a guy loosing his virginity. This would sound very strange to many people.


That is fine, but I am curious, hypothetically, if someone were to ask "is he a virgin" what might be the best way to phrase it?


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## Andrew___

Josh_ said:


> That is fine, but I am curious, hypothetically, if someone were to ask "is he a virgin" what might be the best way to phrase it?


 
Would we say in MSA: هل مارس الجنس في حياته أم لا؟


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## Josh_

I was thinking about something like along those lines as well.  Perhaps we could say عمره ما عرف ست in Egyptian or لم يعرف امرأة (في حياته) in MSA. I was also  thinking about how high school boys might express the idea amongst themselves. If they are as crude over there as they are here, then they might use other, more... ahem... colorful expressions to express this idea.  More crude expressions for this idea do exist in Arabic.


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## Abu Rashid

cherine,



> We say آنسة when the context is about not having been married. And we use bent بنت when we're talking about virginity.



Are they not pretty much one and the same? Also if a lady has been married and is now divorced, she has not become anisa again, she is still madam is she not? That would indicate it refers to virginity and marriage as a single concept.


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## Josh_

There may be some overlap in the usages of آنسة and بنت, but I do not think we call them one and the same.  As Cherine said, آنسة is used when the context is about not being married, as opposed to متزوجة.  It is applied to a young, unmarried woman.  I see where you are coming from, however -- the word refers to a young, unmarried woman and as such there is an implication of virginity (as a young, unmarried woman would generally be a virgin),  but I don't think, in and of itself, the word is used to mean virgin.

As far as what a divorcee is called, I am not sure, possibly madaam, but آنسة only refers to a younger woman, as far as I'm aware.   An older woman who has never been married is called a عانس.


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## cherine

Josh_ said:


> I was thinking about something like along those lines as well. Perhaps we could say عمره ما عرف ست in Egyptian or لم يعرف امرأة (في حياته) in MSA. I was also thinking about how high school boys might express the idea amongst themselves. If they are as crude over there as they are here, then they might use other, more... ahem... colorful expressions to express this idea. More crude expressions for this idea do exist in Arabic.


I think crude expressions exist in all languages, but I wouldn't know how the guys express this, so we'll need to hear from one of the men here.
A non-crude expression would be like the ones you've suggested ya Josh but with a little difference. عمره ما عرف واحدة could be understood as "he's never been in a relation" even a "platonic" one, so it's not necessarily about not having had sex. The one used is عمره ما نام مع واحدة (he's never slept with a woman before).



Abu Rashid said:


> cherine,
> Are they not pretty much one and the same? Also if a lady has been married and is now divorced, she has not become anisa again, she is still madam is she not? That would indicate it refers to virginity and marriage as a single concept.


I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. I was going to elaborate a bit about this but wasn't sure how to express it. Josh already gave a good start. I'll add this:
If a girl gets married but stays a virgin (for any reason), and in a context/conversation about virginity she wouldn't say: أنا لسة آنسة (ana lessa aanesa), but she'd say أنا لسة بنت  (ana lessa bent). Although in one movie the girl corrected a person calling her "madam" by saying "aanesa" (=Not Mrs. but Miss). But she was only correcting the title, and -shyly- letting the person know that she's still a virgin.


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## HotIcyDonut

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
Hello,

I wonder if i can use أعذر as a masculine form of عذراء in fusha? If yes, what broken plurals it could possibly take? Or it's impossible at all and i need to use a synonym like طاهر or بتول ?

Shukran muqaddaman.


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## barkoosh

Nope. أعذر can't be used for "virgin" in masculine. Generally بتول is used.


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## fdb

In the context of fiqh بكر bikr is used to mean "a man who has never been married" (and is consequently assumed to be a virgin).


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## elroy

In Palestinian Arabic I've heard the expression فلان قدّم على فلانة (flān 2addam 3ala flāne) as a euphemism for "X [male] had sex with Y [female]," so I guess for "He is a virgin" (in a heterosexual context) you could say عمرو ما قدّم عَوحدة (3umro ma 2addam 2a wa7de).


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