ز (zāy) is letter 11 of the 28 in the Arabic alphabet, between ر rāʾ and س sīn. Its sound is z, as in zoo. It never joins to the letter after it, so it has two shapes: ز ز. It is a sun letter, and its abjad value is 7.
Hear its name, زاي (zāy):
Why zāy has two shapes, not four
Zāy is one of the six letters that never join to the letter after them: ا د ذ ر ز و. It joins only from the right, so its initial form is its isolated shape, ز, and its medial form is its final shape, ز. A word breaks into a new piece after it: in زيت (zayt, oil), the letter after zāy starts again.
| Position | Shape | Code point | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Isolated | ز | U+FEAF | written alone, or after a letter that does not join forward |
| Initial | ز | U+FEAF (same as isolated) | at the start of a word: the isolated shape, since nothing joins it on the left |
| Medial | ز | U+FEB0 (same as final) | inside a word: the final shape, and the next letter starts a new piece |
| Final | ز | U+FEB0 | at the end of a word, joined from the letter before |
Typed text stores both shapes as one character, U+0632 (ARABIC LETTER ZAIN); U+FEAF and U+FEB0 are presentation forms that the Unicode Arabic FAQ does not recommend for regular text.
Zāy is number 26 of the 28 letters by frequency, 0.4% 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 final in 66% and alone in 34% of its occurrences.
How to pronounce zāy
The sound of zāy is z, as in zoo, written z in the transliteration of our Arabic alphabet chart.
Arabic words with zāy
These 5 everyday words show zāy in real writing: it is final in خبز; alone in زيت, موز, زوج and أزرق. The first three are the practice words printed on its worksheet; the others come from our list of Arabic family words and our list of colors in Arabic, and more words by topic are in our Arabic vocabulary lists.
| Word | Transliteration | Meaning | Zāy here | Listen |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| زيت | zayt | oil | alone | |
| موز | mawz | bananas | alone | |
| خبز | khubz | bread | final | |
| زوج | zawj | husband | alone | |
| أزرق | azraq | blue | alone |
Zāy with al-, and its number
Zāy is a sun letter, so the l of al- (the) goes silent before it: الزيت is said az-zayt, the oil (test any word in our sun and moon letters checker).
Its abjad value is 7 in both the Mashriqi and the Maghribi order; our abjad calculator adds up whole words.
Letters that look like zāy
Zāy and ر rāʾ share the same curve, and only the dots tell them apart:
- ز zāy: one dot above
- ر rāʾ: no dot
Zāy is the dotted twin of rāʾ and, like it, never joins to the letter after it. That is why أزرق (azraq, blue) falls apart into four pieces: alif, zāy and rāʾ each stop the join, and qāf stands alone at the end.
Practise writing zāy
Trace it on the free zāy tracing worksheet (PDF, one page, 65 KB), which prints its two shapes beside زيت (zayt), موز (mawz) and خبز (khubz); the other 27 are on our Arabic writing worksheets page.
Words and names that start with zāy: Zayn in Arabic.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce the Arabic letter zāy?
The sound of zāy (ز) is z, as in zoo, written z in transliteration.
Does zāy join to the next letter?
No. Zāy is one of six letters, ا د ذ ر ز و, that join only to the letter before them. It has two shapes: ز when nothing joins it, and ز after a joining letter, and the letter after it always starts a new piece of the word.
Is zāy a sun letter or a moon letter?
A sun letter. Before zāy the l of al- goes silent and the letter doubles, so الزيت is said az-zayt (the oil).
Which Arabic letters look like zāy?
ز zāy has one dot above and ر rāʾ has no dot. They share one shape and differ only in their dots.