ض (ḍād) is letter 15 of the 28 in the Arabic alphabet, between ص ṣād and ط ṭāʾ. Its sound is a heavy d, said with the tongue pulled back. It joins on both sides, so it has four shapes: ض ض ض ض. It is a sun letter, and its abjad value is 800.
Hear its name, ضاد (ḍād):
Ḍād in all four positions
Ḍād 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 ض. At the start of a word it is ض, in the middle ض, and at the end ض.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ض | U+FEBD | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ض | U+FEBF | at the start of a word or a piece of a word |
| Medial | ض | U+FEC0 | between two letters that join it |
| Final | ض | U+FEBE | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores all four shapes as one character, U+0636 (ARABIC LETTER DAD); the codes in the table, U+FEBD to U+FEC0, are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Ḍād is number 24 of the 28 letters by frequency, 0.6% 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 26%, medial in 50%, final in 14% and alone in 9% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce ḍād
The sound of ḍād is a heavy d, said with the tongue pulled back, written ḍ in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart. The chart's note on it reads: emphatic "d"; heavy, hollow, from the side of the tongue. English has no exact match, which puts ḍād among the eleven sounds covered on our Arabic pronunciation guide. Its row from that guide:
| Where it is made | A d with the back of the tongue pulled up and back |
|---|---|
| Nearest English | The d in dawn, said darker |
| Confused with | د d |
| Word pair that tests it | ضَرْب ḍarb, hitting / دَرْب darb, path |
In Arabic chat writing, where speakers type Arabic in Latin letters, ḍād is written 9ʼ or D.
Arabic words with ḍād
These 5 everyday words show ḍād in real writing: it is initial in ضوء; medial in أخضر and رمضان; final in أبيض; alone in أرض. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from our list of colors in Arabic and our page of Islamic phrases in Arabic, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Ḍād here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ضوء | ḍawʾ | light | initial | |
| أخضر | akhḍar | green | medial | |
| أرض | arḍ | earth | alone | |
| أبيض | abyaḍ | white | final | |
| رمضان | Ramaḍān | Ramadan | medial |
Ḍād with al-, and its number
Ḍād is a sun letter, so the l of al- (the) goes silent before it: الضوء is said aḍ-ḍawʾ, the light (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 800 in the common Mashriqi order but 90 in the Maghribi order once used in North Africa and al-Andalus; our abjad calculator adds up whole words in both.
Letters that look like ḍād
Ḍād and ص ṣād share the same loop, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ض ḍād: one dot above
- ص ṣād: no dot
The early Arabic grammarians called Arabic the language of the ḍād, because they thought no other language had this sound. It was once a lateral sound; today it is an emphatic d, and it is usually the last letter a learner gets right.
Practise writing ḍād
Trace it on the free ḍād tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 66 KB), which prints its four shapes beside ضوء (ḍawʾ), أخضر (akhḍar) and أرض (arḍ); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter ḍād?
The sound of ḍād (ض) is a heavy d, said with the tongue pulled back, written ḍ in transliteration. Our alphabet chart notes: emphatic "d"; heavy, hollow, from the side of the tongue. Learners often confuse it with د d.
Does ḍād join to the next letter?
Yes. Ḍād joins on both sides, so it has four forms: ض alone, ض at the start of a word, ض in the middle and ض at the end.
Is ḍād a sun letter or a moon letter?
A sun letter. Before ḍād the l of al- goes silent and the letter doubles, so الضوء is said aḍ-ḍawʾ (the light).
Which Arabic letters look like ḍād?
ض ḍād has one dot above and ص ṣād has no dot. They share one shape and differ only in their dots.