gandoura قندورة
Algerian Darja · noun
“gandoura” (قندورة) is a noun in Algerian Darja meaning loose women's dress, house dress.
Meanings
- loose women's dress, house dress
- long men's tunic
Usage
The gandoura is a long, loose garment, very common in Algeria. For women, it is often the everyday house dress, light in summer. There are also dressier gandouras, embroidered or in velvet, worn for celebrations. For men, it is a long tunic worn mainly by older men and in the South. The q is pronounced like a hard g, hence the spelling gandoura, which has passed into French. Plural: gnader.
Example
لبست قندورة جديدة للعرس
lbest gandoura jdida l'3ers
“I put on a new gandoura for the wedding.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “gandoura” but also “9andoura”, “gendoura” and “kandoura”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 9 is qaf (ق), a k pronounced at the back of the throat.