ebda

There are two possibilities: 1.) Perhaps from Arabic أَبَداً‎ (ʾabadan, “not at all, whatsoever”, literally “never”). The pausal pronunciation ʾabadā regularly yields Maltese ebda and its development into a pronoun seems plausible. 2.) Alternatively from Arabic بِضْع‎ (biḍʿ, “some, a few”) with a development into a negative as also in ħadd (“nobody”) and xejn (“nothing”). However, the vocalic onset would be quite unusual in this case; we should expect *bida or *beda. A merger of both words is also conceivable, though it would require that the loss of final unstressed ع‎ happened early.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛbda/

ebda (invariable)

1. no; not any