ع (ʿayn) is letter 18 of the 28 in the Arabic alphabet, between ظ ẓāʾ and غ ghayn. Its sound is a voiced squeeze in the throat; no English equivalent. It joins on both sides, so it has four shapes: ع ع ع ع. It is a moon letter, and its abjad value is 70.
Hear its name, عين (ʿayn):
ʿAyn in all four positions
ʿAyn joins to the letter before it and to the letter after it, so its shape depends on where it sits in a word. Alone it is ع. At the start of a word it is ع, in the middle ع, and at the end ع.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ع | U+FEC9 | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ع | U+FECB | at the start of a word or a piece of a word |
| Medial | ع | U+FECC | between two letters that join it |
| Final | ع | U+FECA | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores all four shapes as one character, U+0639 (ARABIC LETTER AIN); the codes in the table, U+FEC9 to U+FECC, are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
ʿAyn is number 11 of the 28 letters by frequency, 3.6% of all letters, in the 50,000 most common word forms of Arabic film and TV subtitles (hermitdave/FrequencyWords, OpenSubtitles 2018), each form counted as often as it occurs; it is initial in 44%, medial in 43%, final in 11% and alone in 2% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce ʿayn
The sound of ʿayn is a voiced squeeze in the throat; no English equivalent, written ʿ in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart. English has no exact match, which puts ʿayn among the eleven sounds covered on our Arabic pronunciation guide. Its row from that guide:
| Where it is made | Deep in the throat: the tongue root squeezes back toward the throat wall, voice on |
|---|---|
| Nearest English | None. The tight throat at the start of a gag, with voice |
| Confused with | ء ʾ, or dropped entirely |
| Word pair that tests it | عَلَم ʿalam, flag / أَلَم ʾalam, pain |
In Arabic chat writing, where speakers type Arabic in Latin letters, ʿayn is written 3.
Arabic words with ʿayn
These 5 everyday words show ʿayn in real writing: it is initial in عين, عائلة and علم; medial in شعر; alone in شارع. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from our list of Arabic family words and our Arabic pronunciation guide, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | ʿAyn here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| عين | ʿayn | eye | initial | |
| شعر | shaʿr | hair | medial | |
| شارع | shāriʿ | street | alone | |
| عائلة | ʿāʾila | family | initial | |
| علم | ʿalam | flag | initial |
ʿAyn with al-, and its number
ʿAyn is a moon letter, so the l of al- (the) is pronounced before it: العين is al-ʿayn, the eye (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 70 in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order; our abjad calculator adds up whole words.
Letters that look like ʿayn
ʿAyn and غ ghayn share the same shape, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ع ʿayn: no dot
- غ ghayn: one dot above
Many learners replace ʿayn with a glottal stop, which turns عَلَم ʿalam (flag) into أَلَم ʾalam (pain). If those two sound the same when you record yourself, the squeeze is missing. In chat writing ʿayn is the digit 3, the letter flipped left to right.
Practise writing ʿayn
Trace it on the free ʿayn tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 65 KB), which prints its four shapes beside عين (ʿayn), شعر (shaʿr) and شارع (shāriʿ); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Words and names that start with ʿayn: Aaliyah in Arabic and Omar in Arabic.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter ʿayn?
The sound of ʿayn (ع) is a voiced squeeze in the throat; no English equivalent, written ʿ in transliteration. Learners often confuse it with ء ʾ, or dropped entirely.
Does ʿayn join to the next letter?
Yes. ʿAyn joins on both sides, so it has four forms: ع alone, ع at the start of a word, ع in the middle and ع at the end.
Is ʿayn a sun letter or a moon letter?
A moon letter. Before ʿayn the l of al- is pronounced, so العين is al-ʿayn (the eye).
Which Arabic letters look like ʿayn?
ع ʿayn has no dot and غ ghayn has one dot above. They share one shape and differ only in their dots.