dahabieh

D2A1H4A1B3I1E1H4

noun

A traditional Egyptian sailing-boat.

Scrabble 17

Meanings

noundahabieh (plural dahabiehs)

plural dahabiehs · alternative dahabeah · alternative dahabeeah · alternative dahabeeyah · alternative dahabiah · alternative dahabiya · alternative dahabiyah · alternative dahabiyeh · alternative dhahabiyya

  1. A traditional Egyptian sailing-boat.

    The last year of his life he went up the Nile on a dahabiyeh

    1932, John Dos Passos, “The House of Morgan”, in 1919
    4 more examples

    Much has changed since the Victorians traveled in large comfortable boats called dahabiehs — “a bit like floating down the Nile in a brownstone,” Mahoney says.

    2007 August 5, Lisa Fugard, “Against the Current”, in New York Times

    dahabiyeh — that 'trip in a dahabiyeh as far as Biskra' which Mr. Max Beerbohm so commends to lady novelists, and which has so often been taken by Mr. Robert Hicheris. You know what it is like: how the song of the Nubian boatmen mingles[…]

    2021 February 17, E. M. Forster, Delphi Complete Works of E. M. Forster (Illustrated), Delphi Classics, →ISBN

    The dahabiyeh, gentle reader, is a boat in form and outline not unlike the barges of the City Companies in the days when the Thames was to Londoners what the Nile is to the Egyptians. Its saloons and cabins are on deck.

    2013 August 21, Manning, Land Of The Pharaohs, Routledge, →ISBN, page 61

    And when the sun rose, it was upon the white sails of the dahabiyeh, the vacant pyramid, and the slumbering Sphinx. There was great excitement at the Cairo Hotel the next morning. The Princess and the Chevalier had disappeared,[…]

    2019 December 10, Bret Harte, Condensed Novels: New Burlesques, Good Press

Origin

  1. Arabicذَهَبِيَّة
  2. Englishdahabieh

From Arabic ذَهَبِيَّة (ḏahabiyya, literally “golden one”).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

dahabieh. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dahabieh

MLA

“dahabieh.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dahabieh. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dahabieh,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dahabieh.

Source: dahabieh on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.