# قلم
## Arabic
### Etymology 1
#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /qa.la.ma/

#### Verb

قَلَمَ • (qalama) I (non-past يَقْلِمُ (yaqlimu), verbal noun قَلْم (qalm))
* to cut, to clip, to pare, to prune, to trim, to lop, to truncate, to snip, to cut back, to cut down
* to make stripes, to stripe
* to fleece, to fleece wool

##### Conjugation
### Etymology 2

Intensive form II verb derived from form I verb قَلَمَ (qalama, “to cut”).

#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /qal.la.ma/

#### Verb

قَلَّمَ • (qallama) II (non-past يُقَلِّمُ (yuqallimu), verbal noun تَقْلِيم (taqlīm))
* to cut much or frequently
* to striate, to stripe

##### References

* Steingass, Francis Joseph (1884) “قلم”, in The Student's Arabic–English Dictionary‎, London: W.H. Allen

### Etymology 3

From Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, “reed”). Nöldeke and Jeffery are convinced that it comes thence via Ge'ez ቀለም (ḳäläm, “reed”), while Leslau notes that ቀለም (ḳäläm, “reed”) could come from Arabic. But the meaning “reed” – referring to a plant – is not actually attested for the Arabic word, and given the peculiar semantics in Ge'ez where the word ቀለም (ḳäläm) is mixed into the root of ቀለመ (ḳälämä, “to color, to stain, to write”) and as well means “color”, “ink”, “inkstand”, as Leslau separates himself, a Ge'ez origin can explain why in Arabic the meaning is restricted to “pen” in the beginning compared with the Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos) meaning “reed cane” in general.

#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /qa.lam/
** (Egyptian) IPA: /ʔa.lam/
** (Kuwait) IPA: /qələm/
** (Hijazi) IPA: /ɡa.lam/
** (Tunisian) IPA: /qlam/
** (Moroccan) IPA: /qa.lam/
** (North Levantine) IPA: /ʔa.lam/

#### Noun

قَلَم • (qalam) m (plural أَقْلَام (ʔaqlām))
* pen, reed pen
* pencil
    قَلَم رَصَاص ― qalam raṣāṣ ― pencil
* writing, script, calligraphic style, ductus, handwriting
* style
* office, bureau, agency
* window, counter
* (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:) (commerce) item, entry
* (The addition of quotations indicative of this usage is being sought:) stripe, streak, line, bar, stria
* [with بِـ ] بِقَلَم (biqalam): written by (often used to indicate the writer of an article)

##### Descendants

* Gulf Arabic: قلم (qalam)
* Hijazi Arabic: قلم (galam)
* Moroccan Arabic: قلم (qalam)
* → Afar: galám
* → Azerbaijani: qələm
* → Bashkir: ҡәләм (qələm)
* → Dungan: гэран (geran), гәран (gəran), галан (galan)
* → Dhivehi: ގަލަން (galan̊)
* → Hindustani:
    → Hindi: क़लम (qalam)
    → Urdu: قلم (qalam)
** → Burmese: ကလောင် (ka.laung)
*** → Shan: ၵလွင်ႇ (kǎ làung)
* → Bengali: কলম (kolom)
* → Odia: କଲମ (kalama)
* → Kyrgyz: калем (kalem)
* → Kazakh: қалам (qalam)
* → Northern Kurdish: qelem
* → Malay: kalam
** Indonesian: kalam
* → Middle Armenian: ղալամ (ġalam), խալամ (xalam)
* → Old Georgian: კალამი (ḳalami)
** Georgian: კალამი (ḳalami), ყალამი (q̇alami)
* → Ottoman Turkish: قلم (kalem)
** Turkish: kalem
** → Armenian: խալեմ (xalem)
** → Serbo-Croatian: kàlem / ка̀лем
* → Persian: قلم (qalam)
** Tajik: қалам (qalam)
* → Punjabi:
    Gurmukhi: ਕ਼ਲਮ (qalam)
    Shahmukhi: قلم (qalam)
* → Sindhi: قلمُ (qalamu)
* → Somali: qalin
* → Swahili: kalamu
* → Uyghur: قەلەم (qelem)
* → Zazaki: qeleme

#### References

* Ahrens, Karl (1930) “Christliches im Qoran. Eine Nachlese”, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft‎ (in German), volume 84, page 24
* Jeffery, Arthur (1938) “قَلَمٌ”, in The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān (Gaekwad’s Oriental Series; 79), Baroda: Oriental Institute, pages 242–243
* Leslau, Wolf (1991) “qalama”, in Comparative Dictionary of Geʿez (Classical Ethiopic), 2nd edition, Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, →ISBN, pages 428–429
* Löw, Immanuel (1928) Die Flora der Juden‎ (in German), volume 1, Wien und Leipzig: R. Löwit, pages 662–685
* Nöldeke, Theodor (1910) Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft‎ (in German), Straßburg: Karl J. Trübner, page 50

### Etymology 4
#### Pronunciation

* IPA: /qalm/

#### Noun

قَلْم • (qalm) m
* verbal noun of قَلَمَ (qalama) (form I)

##### Declension
#### References

* Freytag, Georg (1835) “قلم”, in Lexicon arabico-latinum praesertim ex Djeuharii Firuzabadiique et aliorum Arabum operibus adhibitis Golii quoque et aliorum libris confectum‎ (in Latin), volume 3, Halle: C. A. Schwetschke, page 492
* Steingass, Francis Joseph (1884) “قلم”, in The Student's Arabic–English Dictionary‎, London: W.H. Allen, pages 853–854
* Wehr, Hans (1979) “قلم”, in J. Milton Cowan, editor, A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic, 4th edition, Ithaca, NY: Spoken Language Services, →ISBN, page 922

## Egyptian Arabic
### Etymology

From Arabic قَلَم (qalam).

### Pronunciation

IPA: /ʔa.lam/

### Noun

قلم • (ʾalam) m (plural أقلام (aʾlām))
* pen

## Gulf Arabic
### Etymology

From Arabic قَلَم (qalam).

### Pronunciation

* (Kuwait) IPA: /ˈqələm/
* (historical or regional) IPA: /ˈɡələm/

### Noun

قَلَم • (qalam) m (before il- قَلَم (qalam), plural اقلام (aqlām))
* pen
    Synonym: قلم حبر
* pencil
    Synonym: قلم رصاص

## Hijazi Arabic
### Etymology

From Arabic قَلَم (qalam).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ɡa.lam/

### Noun

قلم • (galam) m (plural أقلام (ʔaglām))
* pen
    Synonym: قلم حبر (galam ḥibir)
* pencil
    Synonym: قلم رصاص (galam ruṣāṣ)

## Munji
### Noun

قلم (qalam)
* pen

## Ottoman Turkish
### Alternative forms

* գալէմ (kalem) — Armeno-Turkish

### Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic قَلَم (qalam, “pen, reed pen”), itself from Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, “reed”).

### Noun

قلم • (kalem) (plural قلام or اقلام)
* reed, especially when cut and dried for use
    Synonym: خامه (hame)
* (botany) any jointed and hollow stem of a plant
* (botany) any slip or cutting taken from a plant for rooting or grafting
* pen, a tubular tool originally made from reeds used for writing
    Synonym: خامه (hame)
* pencil, a writing utensil with a graphite shaft
    Synonym: خامه (hame)
* stylus or any sharp object similar to a stylus

#### Derived terms

* قلمتراش (kalemtıraş, “knife for cutting reed pens”)
* قلمجی (kalemci, “seller of reeds for pens”)
* قلمدان (kalemdan, “pen-case”)
* قلمی (kalemî, “shaped like a reed”)

#### Descendants

* Turkish: kalem
* → Armenian: խալեմ (xalem)
* → Ladino: kalem
* → Serbo-Croatian: kàlem / ка̀лем

### Further reading

* Çağbayır, Yaşar (2007) “kalem”, in Ötüken Türkçe Sözlük (in Turkish), volume 1, Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat, page 2352
* Kélékian, Diran (1911) “قلم”, in Dictionnaire turc-français‎, Constantinople: Mihran, page 969
* Meninski, Franciszek à Mesgnien (1687) “Calamus”, in Complementum thesauri linguarum orientalium, seu onomasticum latino-turcico-arabico-persicum, simul idem index verborum lexici turcico-arabico-persici, quod latinâ, germanicâ, aliarumque linguarum adjectâ nomenclatione nuper in lucem editum‎, Vienna, column 134
* Meninski, Franciszek à Mesgnien (1680) “قلم”, in Thesaurus linguarum orientalium, Turcicae, Arabicae, Persicae, praecipuas earum opes à Turcis peculiariter usurpatas continens, nimirum Lexicon Turkico-Arabico-Persicum‎, Vienna, column 3751
* Meyer, Gustav (1893) “Türkische Studien. I. Die griechischen und romanischen Bestandtheile im Wortschatze des Osmanisch-Türkischen”, in Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (in German), volume 128, Wien: In Commission bei F. Tempsky, page 48
* Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–) “kalem”, in Nişanyan Sözlük
* Redhouse, James W. (1890) “قلم”, in A Turkish and English Lexicon‎, Constantinople: A. H. Boyajian, page 1472

## Persian
### Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic قَلَم (qalam), from Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, “reed”).

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Persian) IPA: [qa.ˈlam]
* (Dari, formal) IPA: [qä.lǽm]
* (Dari, formal) IPA: [qä.lǽm]
** (Kabuli) IPA: [qä.lǽm]
** (Hazaragi) IPA: [qä.lǽm]
* (Iran, formal) IPA: [qæ.lǽm]
* (Tajik, formal) IPA: [qä.lǽm]

### Noun

قَلَم • (qalam) (plural قلم‌ها (qalam-hâ) or اقلام (aqlâm))
* reed pen
** c. 1520, Selim I of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Benedek Péri, The Persian Dīvān of Yavuz Sulṭān Selīm, Budapest, Hungary: Research Centre for the Humanities, Eötvös Loránd Research Network, →ISBN, page 159:گویی که هست شعله تیغ زبان من آهم که پای لوح و قلم را قلم کندgōyē ki hast ša'la-yi tēğ-i zabān-i man āham ki pā-yi lawh u qalam rā qalam kunadThe sigh which breaks the base of the tablet and the reed pen [because the sigh of love cannot be written down] Is as if it were a spark from the blade of my tongue.(Classical Persian transliteration)
* pen (in general)
* (commerce) item, entry
    چندین قلم جنس در مغازه داریم.čandin qalam jens dar mağâze dârim.We have various kinds of articles (or goods) in our store.
* (computing) font

#### Usage notes

* Use only broken plural اقلام (aqlâm) for the sense "item; entry".

#### Derived terms

* قلم کردن (qalam kardan)
* قلمتراش (qalam-tarâš)
* قلمدان (qalamdân)

## Punjabi
### Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic قَلَم (qalam), from Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, “reed”).

### Pronunciation

* (Standard Punjabi) IPA: /kə.ləmə̆/

### Noun

قَلَم • (qalam) f (Gurmukhi spelling ਕਲਮ)
* pen

#### Declension
## Sindhi
### Etymology

From Classical Persian قلم (qalam), from Arabic قَلَم (qalam), from Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, “reed”).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: [qalamʊ]

### Noun

قَلَمُ • (qalamu) m (Devanagari क़लमु) (plural قَلَمَ)
* pen

## South Levantine Arabic
### Etymology

From Arabic قَلَم (qalam).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: (Ramallah) /ʔa.lam/, [ˈʔa.lam]
* IPA: (Gaza) /ɡa.lam/, [ˈɡa.lam]
* Audio (Ramallah):(file)

### Noun

قلم • (ʔalam) m (plural قلام (ʔlām) or أقلام (ʔaʔlām))
* pen

## Urdu
### Etymology

Borrowed from Classical Persian قلم (qalam), from Arabic قَلَم (qalam), from Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos, “reed”).

### Pronunciation

* (Standard Urdu) IPA: /qə.ləm/
* Audio (Pakistan):(file)
* Rhymes: -əm

### Noun

قَلَم • (qalam) m or f (Hindi spelling क़लम)
* pen
    (historical) reed pen
* reed

#### Declension
### References

* “قلم”, in اُردُو لُغَت (urdū luġat) (in Urdu), Ministry of Education: Government of Pakistan, 2017.
* “قلم”, in ریخْتَہ لُغَت (rexta luġat) - Rekhta Dictionary [Urdu dictionary with meanings in Hindi & English], Noida, India: Rekhta Foundation, 2025.

## Yidgha
### Noun

قلم (qalam)
* pen