difa3 دفاع
Moroccan Darija · noun
“difa3” (دفاع) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning defense (sport, military).
Meanings
- defense (sport, military)
- legal defense, defense lawyer
Usage
The noun difa3 comes from the standard register but is common in Morocco in a few specific areas. In football, it refers to a team's defensive line. It also appears in legal vocabulary, with l-mou7ami dyal d-difa3, "the defense lawyer", and in military vocabulary. In everyday conversation, to say "to defend someone", people use the verb dafe3 3la instead. It should not be confused with dfe3, which means "to push" or "to file a case".
Example
الدفاع ديال الفريق كان ضعيف بزاف
ddifa3 dyal lferi9 kan d3if bzaf
“The team's defense was very weak.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “difa3” but also “difaa3”, “difa3e” and “ddifa3”. 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.