3cha عشا
Moroccan Darija · noun
“3cha” (عشا) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning evening meal, dinner.
Meanings
- evening meal, dinner
Usage
3cha means the evening meal, eaten fairly late in Morocco, often after the late-afternoon snack. You say kla l3cha or t3echa (to have dinner), and wajed l3cha (dinner is ready). To ask whether there is anything to eat, you say kayn chi 3cha? Bat bla 3cha means to go to bed on an empty stomach. Be careful not to confuse it with 3chiya (the afternoon). Salat l3cha is also the night prayer, the last of the day. The related verb t3echa, ytt3echa means to have dinner.
Example
كاين شي عشا
kayn chi 3cha
“Is there anything for dinner?”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “3cha” but also “3acha”, “aacha” and “3xa”. 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 “3cha” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “dinner, evening meal”: 3cha in Tunisian.