Word.ws English Dictionary

mashrabiyya

/məʃɹəˈbi.ə/

mashrabiyya noun: a balcony in North Africa enclosed with carved wooden latticework.

mashrabiyya: a balcony in North Africa enclosed with carved wooden latticework
Image: Zishansheikh, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

mashrabiyya (plural mashrabiyyas or mashrabiyya)

  1. A balcony in North Africa enclosed with carved wooden latticework.
    • The upper floors of the buildings bordering the street leading to the mosque feature mashrabiyya, intricate wooden lattice window screens. […] In contrast to the modest mashrabiyya overlooking the alley, on the side facing the main street, the buildings feature inviting open balconies accessed by...2009, Deborah Starr, Remembering Cosmopolitan Egypt, Routledge, →ISBN, page 1
  2. The latticework itself, also used to craft certain objects.
    • And who is it who contemplates those thickly studded doors and windows covered with closely worked mashrabiyya and seriously thinks that some sort of enchantment lies beyond them?1988, Robert Irwin, The Mysteries of Algiers, Dedalus, published 1993, page 123

Forms of mashrabiyya

pluralmashrabiyyas
pluralmashrabiyya
alternative formmashrabiya
alternative formmoucharabieh
alternative formmoucharaby
alternative formmouchrabieh
alternative formmushrebiyeh

Origin of mashrabiyya

From French moucharaby, later reborrowed from its source, Arabic مَشْرَبِيَّة (mašrabiyya), from مِشْرَبَة (mišraba, “small jug”), from the water jars placed in it to provide evaporative cooling.

Questions about mashrabiyya

What does mashrabiyya mean?
Mashrabiyya means a balcony in North Africa enclosed with carved wooden latticework.
What part of speech is mashrabiyya?
Mashrabiyya is a noun.
How do you pronounce mashrabiyya?
Mashrabiyya is pronounced /məʃɹəˈbi.ə/ (UK).
What is the plural of mashrabiyya?
The plural of mashrabiyya is mashrabiyyas.

Words near mashrabiyya in the dictionary

  1. Mashpi glass frogs
  2. mashq
  3. mashqs
  4. mashrabiya
  5. mashrabiyas
  6. mashrabiyya
  7. mashrabiyyas
  8. mashrap
  9. mashraps
  10. Mashrek
  11. Mashreq

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mashrabiyya (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mashrabiyya.wav.

Cite this entry: “mashrabiyya.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mashrabiyya. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.