ث (thāʾ) is letter 4 of the 28 in the Arabic alphabet, between ت tāʾ and ج jīm. Its sound is th, as in think. It joins on both sides, so it has four shapes: ث ث ث ث. It is a sun letter, and its abjad value is 500.
Hear its name, ثاء (thāʾ):
Thāʾ in all four positions
Thāʾ 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 ث. At the start of a word it is ث, in the middle ث, and at the end ث.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ث | U+FE99 | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ث | U+FE9B | at the start of a word or a piece of a word |
| Medial | ث | U+FE9C | between two letters that join it |
| Final | ث | U+FE9A | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores all four shapes as one character, U+062B (ARABIC LETTER THEH); the codes in the table, U+FE99 to U+FE9C, are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Thāʾ is number 25 of the 28 letters by frequency, 0.5% 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 29%, medial in 42%, final in 9% and alone in 19% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce thāʾ
The sound of thāʾ is th, as in think, written th in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart. English has this sound too and spells it th, the same two letters it uses for the other th sound; Arabic gives each its own letter.
Spoken dialects do not all say thāʾ the same way. Learn the Standard sound first, because every speaker recognises it; this is what you will hear instead.
| Modern Standard | Egyptian (Cairo) | Levantine (cities) | Gulf (Kuwait, Qatar, Najd) | Libyan (Tripoli) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| th as in think: ثلج thalj, snow | t in everyday words, s in words taken from Standard Arabic | t or s: talj | th, kept | t: talj |
Arabic words with thāʾ
These 4 everyday words show thāʾ in real writing: it is initial in ثلج, ثوب and ثلاثة; medial in مثل. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from our page on Arabic numbers, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Thāʾ here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ثلج | thalj | snow | initial | |
| مثل | mithl | like | medial | |
| ثوب | thawb | robe | initial | |
| ثلاثة | thalātha | three | initial |
Thāʾ with al-, and its number
Thāʾ is a sun letter, so the l of al- (the) goes silent before it: الثلج is said ath-thalj, the snow (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 500 in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order; our abjad calculator adds up whole words.
Letters that look like thāʾ
Thāʾ, ب bāʾ, ت tāʾ, ن nūn and ي yāʾ share the same tooth, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ث thāʾ: three dots above
- ب bāʾ: one dot below
- ت tāʾ: two dots above
- ن nūn: one dot above (at the start and in the middle of a word)
- ي yāʾ: two dots below (at the start and in the middle of a word)
Thāʾ is the th of think. English uses the same two letters for the th of this, which Arabic writes with a different letter, ذ dhāl.
Practise writing thāʾ
Trace it on the free thāʾ tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 64 KB), which prints its four shapes beside ثلج (thalj), مثل (mithl) and ثوب (thawb); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter thāʾ?
The sound of thāʾ (ث) is th, as in think, written th in transliteration.
Does thāʾ join to the next letter?
Yes. Thāʾ joins on both sides, so it has four forms: ث alone, ث at the start of a word, ث in the middle and ث at the end.
Is thāʾ a sun letter or a moon letter?
A sun letter. Before thāʾ the l of al- goes silent and the letter doubles, so الثلج is said ath-thalj (the snow).
Which Arabic letters look like thāʾ?
ث thāʾ has three dots above, ب bāʾ has one dot below, ت tāʾ has two dots above, ن nūn has one dot above and ي yāʾ has two dots below. At the start and in the middle of a word they share one shape and differ only in their dots.