Rekhta Dictionary Blog

Diwan: Rational Word with Irrational Meanings

If you’re here early, you know it’s the season of festivities, celebrating different Indian Demi-Gods and -Goddesses. If celebration is something to be taken as a precursor of things to come, you’d sure have caught the whiff that Jashn-e-Rekhta is ...continue reading

Izafat: Making Sense of Knotty Grammar

Grammar can be aesthetically pleasing. On that bold claim, I begin to take to one of Urdu grammar’s most charming facets, the Izafat. From ‘Tah-e-Dil se Shukriya’ to ‘Chashm-e-Bad-Door’, we come across the Izafat several times in our Roz-Marra. But ...continue reading

Haan: All about Here, There, and Everywhere!

Words morph, pronunciations whirl, expressions change, and meanings shift, but rarely do we come across utterances that have been so drastically revamped that modern-day speakers need a reintroduction to what they originally sounded like ...continue reading

Agar-Magar: Exploring the World of Ifs and Buts

Ifs and buts create the gray areas in our speech that shine brighter than all other colors produced by all of language. Grammatically a conjunction, or Harf-e-Atf as it’s called in Urdu, this one set of words is just an inevitable part of our vocab. ...continue reading

Waapas: Returning to our Wordly Roots

A word is often meshed with so many warps and wefts (Taana-Baana) that we barely ever realize how nuanced the fabric of language is. But once we do, it seems like nothing short of a fit! On the back of this allegorical intro, let’s return to our tra ...continue reading

Lahja Vs Lahza - Know the Difference!

A great many words in our everyday rhetoric are mispronounced, and no better testament to that exists besides the ‘J’-for-‘Z’ confusion. Take Zamaana spoken as Jamaana, Zor as Jor, Marzi as Marji, and so on ...continue reading

Waghaira: Etymology, Usage, Waghaira Waghaira!

Words often conceal more than they convey. Today, we’ll be unpicking, unpacking, and more, a word we use countless times every day, but are only getting to know now. Waghaira, our very own etcetera, is a word we use here, there, and everywhere. It’s ...continue reading

Epizeuxis: Socho Socho Kya Hai Ye!

Last week I dropped in on an old friend for dinner. Since I had arrived early - around 5-ish - her mother offered tea, which I was only too kind not to refuse. Cutting to the chase, we had tea. It was around 6:15 and we started noshing in on some sna ...continue reading

Alaava Az Alaava: What's More than Moreover

The interplay between a word’s literal and colloquial use often results in discoveries beyond interesting! In this blog, we’ve dug out a familiar - yet not-completely-known word - that might raise your eyebrow to the top ...continue reading

Word Builders: The “Paa” you haven't Found Yet!

Last time around, we picked a tiny, tiny word ‘Jaa’ to lay bare how words actually build our everyday lexicon. Continuing the series, here I am bringing you another little word that has enabled several other words to come to their feet ...continue reading