7awli حولي
Moroccan Darija · noun
“7awli” (حولي) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning sheep, ram.
Meanings
- sheep, ram
Usage
7awli is the usual word for a sheep, in particular the ram bought for Eid al-Adha (l3id lkbir). The questions "chriti l7awli?" ("did you buy the sheep?") or "bchhal l7awli?" ("how much is the sheep?") come up every year at that time. The plural is 7wala. For a ewe, na3ja is used instead. The word is also used colloquially to call someone naive or a follower, but this sense is mocking and depends on context. Note that khrouf is not the word used for the Eid sheep.
Example
شرينا الحولي ديال العيد
chrina l7awli dyal l3id
“We bought the Eid sheep.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “7awli” but also “7oli”, “hawli”, “7awlii” and “7auli”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 7 is ha (ح), a breathy h from the throat.
Type “7awli” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “sheep, ram (especially the Eid one)”; “yearling lamb”: 7awli in Algerian.