Ishq Meaning
इश्क़ · عشق
Ishq is intense, all-consuming love — far deeper than ordinary fondness. In Urdu poetry it often blurs into the spiritual: a love so total it becomes a kind of devotion.
Where Ishq comes from
Ishq comes into Hindi-Urdu from Arabic عشق, built on a root that carries the sense of clinging or entwining — the image is a vine wrapped around a tree. Persian poetry carried it into South Asia, where Sufi writers used it for love of the divine as readily as love of a person.
Ishq vs similar words
Mohabbat is the everyday word for love; ishq is the extreme of it. Where mohabbat can describe warmth toward family or a friend, ishq is singular and consuming. Classical poetry even grades it — ishq-e-majazi for earthly love, ishq-e-haqiqi for the divine kind.
How Ishq is used in songs
Songwriters reach for ishq when the feeling has stopped being manageable. It signals surrender rather than courtship, so it tends to appear at a song's emotional peak rather than its opening.
Hear it in a song
IshqMore words from Hindi & Urdu songs
See the full glossaryMost-Searched Lyric Translations
The most-searched Hindi songs — meanings, translations and where to stream.
