7lwa حلوة
Moroccan Darija · noun
“7lwa” (حلوة) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning cake, pastry.
Meanings
- cake, pastry
- sweet, candy
- sweet (feminine of 7lou)
Usage
As a noun, 7lwa refers to a pastry, a cake or a sweet. It is often specified with dyal: 7lwa dyal limoun, "lemon cake". The collective 7lawa and the plural 7lawiyat refer to all the cakes served at celebrations or with tea. The same word is also the feminine of the adjective 7lou: dlla7a 7lwa, "a sweet watermelon". So you need to tell the noun from the adjective according to the sentence. For a bakery pastry, gato is also used.
Example
عفاك زيدني حلوة أخرى
3afak zidni 7lwa akhra
“Please give me another cake.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “7lwa” but also “7elwa”, “7lowa”, “hlwa” and “7loua”. 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 “7lwa” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Algerian Darja, where it means “beautiful, pretty, pleasant”; “sweet (to the taste)”: hlowa in Algerian.