7lib حليب
Moroccan Darija · noun
“7lib” (حليب) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning milk.
Meanings
- milk
Usage
7lib is the ordinary word for milk, whether from a cow, a goat or from a carton. It is often used with the article: l7lib. It appears in everyday expressions such as atay b l7lib (tea with milk), qahwa b l7lib (coffee with milk) or bla 7lib (without milk), common in cafés and at home. Fermented milk is called lben, a separate word: do not confuse the two, because in Morocco lben means buttermilk, not fresh milk.
Example
عندنا صوص بلا حليب?
3ndna SoS bla 7lib?
“Do we have a sauce without milk?”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “7lib” but also “hlib”, “7alib” and “halib”. 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 “7lib” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “milk”: 7lib in Algerian.
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “milk”; “breast milk”: 7lib in Tunisian.