Meanings
plural dahabiehs · alternative dahabeah · alternative dahabeeah · alternative dahabeeyah · alternative dahabiah · alternative dahabiya · alternative dahabiyah · alternative dahabiyeh · alternative dhahabiyya
- 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 19194 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 Timesdahabiyeh — 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, →ISBNThe 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 61And 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
- Arabicذَهَبِيَّة
- Englishdahabieh
From Arabic ذَهَبِيَّة (ḏahabiyya, literally “golden one”).
More words from Arabic
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
dahabieh. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dahabieh
“dahabieh.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dahabieh. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dahabieh,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dahabieh.
Source: dahabieh on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.