How to say “meaning” in 43 languages
Every one of these is a word that turns up in ordinary speech, not a dictionary curiosity — the number beside it is where it ranks in that language.
It is commonest in Vietnamese, where không is the 2nd most used word.
- Afrikaans sin meaning, sense #621
- Albanian nuk Negates the meaning of the modified verb:… #5
- Arabic معنى meaning, import, sense #533
- Armenian կուչ found only in idioms with the meaning… #1,086
- Basque esanahi #1,146
- Bengali মানে #114
- Bosnian smisao sense, meaning #1,883
- Bulgarian значение significance, meaning, sense #318
- Chinese 意思 meaning; significance #45
- Croatian smisao sense, meaning #1,794
- Czech smysl sense, meaning #623
- Danish sin third-person sg pronoun, meaning his/her/its #192
- Dutch zin meaning, significance #589
- English not Negates the meaning of the modified verb #28
- Esperanto sencon sense, meaning #2,465
- Finnish merkitystä meaning, contents #1,883
- French soit or, meaning, that is to say #187
- Galician significado #2,378
- Georgian მნიშვნელობა #643
- German bedeutung meaning, sense #2,404
- Greek σημασία meaning, sense #494
- Hebrew משמעות #977
- Hindi मतलब #154
- Hungarian jelentést #2,087
- Icelandic þeim them, dative plural form of hann meaning "he" #377
- Korean 의미 #1,091
- Latvian ļoti used to intensify the meaning of the word it… #63
- Lithuanian prasmė sense, meaning #1,749
- Macedonian смисла sense, meaning, logic, purpose #604
- Malay bererti having meaning; meaningful #1,307
- Malayalam അർത്ഥം #826
- Persian معنی with the meaning of: means, meaning #1,292
- Polish niech expresses optative meaning; had better, may #169
- Romanian sens sense, meaning #901
- Russian смысле sense, meaning #518
- Serbian smisao sense, meaning #1,840
- Slovenian smisel #577
- Tagalog kahulugan meaning; sense #839
- Tamil வேண்டாம் A modal verb meaning 'will not be needed or… #50
- Turkish acaba Used to add a meaning of curiosity,… #451
- Ukrainian завгодно with pronoun or adverb, meaning "any" #1,035
- Urdu معنی #1,360
- Vietnamese không Negates the meaning of the modified verb or… #2
Knowing the word is the easy half.
Using it with someone who speaks the language is the half that sticks.