# اضطر



## Pizzas

Hi, what does that verb mean?

It's in this context. He (blanked) a car purchase.

اضطرّ شراء سيارة


----------



## shafaq

He got compelled/forced to buy a car.
Its root is ضرر  ضرّ  اضترّ _ اضطرّ  .


----------



## ayed

A context is always helpful and governs the whole meaning.

_He was obliged to buy a car_.However, I apt to "_he had to buy a car_"


----------



## cherine

Pizzas said:


> Hi, what does that verb mean?
> 
> It's in this context. He (blanked) a car purchase.
> 
> اضطرّ شراء سيارة


Hi Pizzas,

If this is another "fill in the blank" exercise, you need to give us the other choices.

As for the verb اضطر it means "he had to", and it can't be used with this sentence because it's used with a particle: اضطر لـ or اضطر إلى .


----------



## ARB87

[Moderator's Note: Merged with a previous thread]
Is this a colloquial verb? ضَطَرَ
(I hope I am spelling it correctly)

I think it is a colloqial way to say "have to" (such as يجب in MSA)


----------



## jack_1313

اضطر is MSA. The root of the verb is ض ر ر and it's form VIII.


----------



## ARB87

شكرا  yes I did not have the correct spelling before.  I have a couple of questions about this verb:

1. For the meaning "have to", is it necessary to use the passive form?  That is what is said in the Wehr dictionary.  For example, is this correct?
_
I have to buy a car_
أُضْطُرَّ لِشراء سيارة

2.  Is there any difference in meaning between اضطر and يجب ?  For example in English, there is a difference between "have to" and "obligated".  Obligated means "have to" but also implies that the person has a contract, etc to do something.  Is there any similar difference in meaning?


----------



## akhooha

While it is indeed MSA, Badawi's Dictionary of Egyptian Arabic (page 521) indicates that it is also considered Egyptian Colloquial:


----------



## cherine

ARB87 said:


> 1. For the meaning "have to", is it necessary to use the passive form?  That is what is said in the Wehr dictionary.  For example, is this correct?
> _
> I have to buy a car_
> أُضْطُرَّ لِشراء سيارة


The passive form indicates that the person was forced to do something. The active form is used to speak about what forced him. For example:
اِضْطَّرَتْهُ الأحوال الجوية السيئة لإلغاء سفره
Bad weather forced him to cancel his travel

For your sentence, "I have to buy a car", the verb اضطر wouldn't work. But saying اِضْطُرِرْتُ لشراء سيارة means that something forced you to do it (for example, because there's no transport between you home and your work). And this brings me to your other questions:


> 2.  Is there any difference in meaning between اضطر and يجب ?  For example in English, there is a difference between "have to" and "obligated".  Obligated means "have to" but also implies that the person has a contract, etc to do something.  Is there any similar difference in meaning?


اضطر indicates being forced by something or by circumstances to do something you wouldn't have done otherwise. But يجب, in many contexts works like "have to" or "should".


----------



## analeeh

I think there is some confusion amongst native speakers about this, at least in some areas. It looks like in Egyptian - like in Syrian - this same verb is used in the active in the sense that the passive is (prescriptively) used for in MSA. And obviously since a lot of the time the verb is written without vowels, I think reading it in the active when it should be passive is not that unusual?


----------



## cherine

You're right. In EA, we use the active form for both:
الجو اضطرني ألغي سفري elgaww eTTarreni
اضطريت ألغي سفري eTTarreet


----------



## ARB87

شكران على اشرح الرائع



analeeh said:


> I think there is some confusion amongst native speakers about this, at least in some areas. It looks like in Egyptian - like in Syrian - this same verb is used in the active in the sense *that the passive is (prescriptively) used for in MSA*. And obviously since a lot of the time the verb is written without vowels, I think reading it in the active when it should be passive is not that unusual?



I didn't quite understand this.  In MSA, for example, if this verb is used on the News, will you hear the passive voice, and all the correct voweling as 'cherine' showed in her examples?

But I understand in dialect, the passive voweling is not used and "to force" and "was forced" is understood by context.


----------



## analeeh

I don't know about the news, but even Arabic teachers I have had/very educated people I've known have been confused about the correct vowelling in MSA.


----------



## ARB87

Interesting. Honestly, passive verbs confuse me.  With text, at least I think the ُ vowels are put in to show a verb is passive.  But with speaking, I find that hard.  Also, I believe the verb forms with first vowel Damma (eg. يُفَعِّلُ ) are often spoken with fatHa instead of Damma.  I think that would make it easier to "hear" a passive verb, but now what if someone does the classical pronounciation of يُفَعِّلُ with the first Damma, will it sound like a passive verb?  

Anyway, maybe the understanding comes mainly from the context of the rest of the sentence...


----------



## analeeh

Well, the internal passive is dead in almost all dialects, with the exception of a few Bedouins here and there; most dialects use forms V, VI, VII and to some extent VIII, as well as the common innovation _itfa3al_, to produce passive verbs of various kinds. Also, most dialects have /i/ or /a/ consistently throughout the prefixes (/i/ is more common), no matter what the form may be. There are a few verbs which are probably descended from reanalysis of the internal passive, like Syrian _khélé2/yékhla2_ 'be born', which contrasts with _khala2_ 'to create'; in these cases the only difference is the internal vowelling and the context (as is the difference with the past passive in MSA in any case). When people use MSA-ish passive verbs - and this happens, in elevated speech - they tend to produce them like _yukhlaq _or _byukhlaq_ (for Syrian), i.e. almost identical to the MSA form but sometimes with some colloquial morphology.

If you mean reading MSA out loud or speaking it - no, forms II III IV are always read with /u/ in the prefix. You can only work out the difference from context and from the internal vowelling - _yuqaatal _vs _yuqaatil_ for example.


----------



## Ghabi

analeeh said:


> Well, the internal passive is dead in almost all dialects, with the exception of a few Bedouins here and there[...]


"Bedouins" may not be an accurate label in this case, cf. Najdi Arabic: ذْبِحْ / نْذِبَحْ (passive).


----------



## Interprete

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

I have a question about the verb أضطرّ as in 'to be forced to do something', which I always hear in the passive form (udturra) on TV and radio.
I saw it by chance in the dictionary and noticed they mention it as 'idtarra' (active form), but still with the same passive meaning of 'being forced'.
Are both correct?
I actually often wondered about this verb and other similar verbs that share the same form, since افتعل already has a passive meaning, why use it in the passive form uftu3ila (how come a doubly passive verb doesn't become active, like in math? ).

Thanks.


----------



## elroy

I've only ever heard and used "iDtarra."


----------



## Interprete

Here's this Qur'anic verse I just found while looking for examples:
إِنَّمَا حَرَّمَ عَلَيْكُمُ الْمَيْتَةَ وَالدَّمَ وَلَحْمَ الْخِنزِيرِ وَمَا أُهِلَّ بِهِ لِغَيْرِ اللَّهِ ۖ فَمَنِ اضْطُرَّ غَيْرَ بَاغٍ وَلَا عَادٍ فَلَا إِثْمَ عَلَيْهِ ۚ إِنَّ اللَّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ (173)
Tashkil is not mine... but is it a different verb maybe?


​


----------



## Interprete

cherine said:


> The passive form indicates that the person was forced to do something. The active form is used to speak about what forced him. For example:
> اِضْطَّرَتْهُ الأحوال الجوية السيئة لإلغاء سفره
> Bad weather forced him to cancel his travel


Thank you Cherine, and sorry for the double thread (I had looked for اضطر in the search field though but this previous thread didn't show up).
As Analeeh says there seems to be some confusion around this verb. My French dictionary (Larousse) mentions the active form اِضطَر with the meaning of 'to be compelled' (not to compel)...


----------



## cherine

This is strange  I'll double-check in my copy when I get home. For now, here's what Hans Wehr has:
*[form]VIII* to force, compel, coerce, oblige (هـ s.o., إلى to); -pass. _udturra_ to be forced, compelled, obliged (إلى to); to be in an emergency or predicament, be hard pressed; to be in need (إلى of s.th.), need, want (إلى s.th.)


So, he's clearly making the difference between اِضْطَرَّ (to compel or force someone) and اِضْطُرَّ (to be compelled, forced).

P.S. The word highlighted in red has dots under the d and t, but I can't type those.


----------



## princeipeazul

If the verb اضطرّ is classified as a type 8-verb, then why it is written with a ط and not a ت? It should be written as اضترّ. Can someone explain?


----------



## elroy

In a word, assimilation.


----------



## Ghabi

Some forms of assimilation involving a prefix or infix are orthographically visible. You can refer to post#3 of this thread:
اِدَّعَى


----------

