bsel بصل
Moroccan Darija · noun
“bsel” (بصل) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning onion (collective).
Meanings
- onion (collective)
Usage
Bsel is the word for "onion" in darija. It is used mostly as a collective, with the article: lbsel. To refer to a single onion, you say bsla ("wa7ed lbsla"), and to count several, bslat. Onion is everywhere in Moroccan cooking, notably in tajines and in tfaya, a garnish of caramelized onions. You say "bsel 7mer" for red onion and "bsel khder" for green onion. The pitfall for an English speaker is that lbsel, though grammatically singular, generally means onions in quantity, not a single one.
Example
قطع البصل رقيق ودير الطاجين
qatte3 lbsel rqiq w dir tajine
“Slice the onions thinly and prepare the tajine.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “bsel” but also “bssel”, “basal” and “bsal”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Type “bsel” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “onion (vegetable)”; “green onion, scallion (bsal akhdher)”: bsal in Tunisian.