rabe3 رابع
Algerian Darja · adjective
“rabe3” (رابع) is an adjective in Algerian Darja meaning fourth.
Meanings
- fourth
Usage
Rabe3 is the ordinal of rab3a (four). It is used mainly in numbering: a floor, a season of a series, a rank in a competition. It goes after the noun, with the article if the noun is definite: "ttabaq rrabe3" (the fourth floor), "jouz2 rabe3" (a fourth part). The feminine is rab3a, which can be confused with the number "four". In speech, for floors or school years, the French forms are also heard: "quatrième étage", "la 4e".
Example
ساكن في الطابق الرابع.
saken f ttabaq rrabe3.
“I live on the fourth floor.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “rabe3” but also “rab3”, “rabaa”, “rabea” and “rabi3”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 3 is ayn (ع), a voiced sound from deep in the throat with no English equivalent.
Type “rabe3” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “fourth (rank, order)”; “the fourth one in a series”: rabe3 in Tunisian.