و — waw
«waw» is a consonant of the Arabic script, read as “w / uu”. The w of "water", made lip to lip with no teeth; inside a word it also serves as the long vowel "uu". For example, in the word “ورد” — rose. The Arabic alphabet has 28 letters in total. A loop hanging alone — the only letter that does not carry a single dot. It appears, for example, in the word “عفوا” — excuse me.
In short
| Character | و |
| Name | waw |
| Sound | w / uu |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 2nd of 31: the order here is not alphabetical but from familiar to unfamiliar, its neighbours in the course are ا and ي, appears in roughly every fifth word on this site.
How to type و
- On a phone: add the Arabic keyboard in the keyboard settings (Gboard on Android; Keyboards in the iPhone settings).
- In Word on Windows: type U+0648 and press Alt+X right after it — the code turns into the character.
- On a Mac: switch to the Unicode Hex Input source, hold Option and type 0648.
- Unicode code point: U+0648. With it, the character can be found in the character map of any system.
How it sounds
The w of "water", made lip to lip with no teeth; inside a word it also serves as the long vowel "uu"
Other written forms
The same character is written differently on a shop sign and in a book. Here are all the forms you may meet.
| Form | Character | Note |
|---|---|---|
| final | ـو | joins only from the right |
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- وردвардrose
The character in the “long vowels: alif, waw, yaa” group
The script is an abjad: short vowels are not written in it at all. كتاب is "ktb", and it reads kataba — the vowels are restored from grammar. Only the long ones are written, with these three signs. Waw and yaa stay consonants ("w" and "y") whenever they have a vowel of their own next to them.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «waw» it is “w / uu”, as in the word “ورد”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 28 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Arabic character و read?
As “w / uu” — it is a consonant of the Arabic script. The w of "water", made lip to lip with no teeth; inside a word it also serves as the long vowel "uu". For example, in the word “ورد” — rose.
What is the letter و called?
Waw. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Arabic script: it is called “waw” and reads as “w / uu”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.