Culturally appropriate terms are more likely to enable clinicians to identify psychiatric conditions and psychological distress. Although Arabic translations of depression inventories exist, their sensitivity in Arabic-speaking communities may be limited. The authors set out to identify terms and phrases that the native people in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, use to express depression. 100 male and 100 female community members (aged 18-56 yrs) were asked to provide a list of expressions describing emotions. Scrutiny of this by another sample led to a list of expressions specifically used for the feelings of depression. An expert panel then helped to identify from this a set of expressions clinically used for depression, and to construct a symptom checklist relevant to the culture. This article describes the development of the checklist, and comments on the relevant issues.