kabous كابوس
Moroccan Darija · noun
“kabous” (كابوس) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning nightmare, bad dream.
Meanings
- nightmare, bad dream
- ordeal, awful thing or person
Usage
Kabous comes from Classical Arabic, but it is perfectly common in everyday speech in Morocco. It first means a bad dream: one says 7lmt b chi kabous or jani kabous. It is also used figuratively, as in English, for a very trying situation or person: had l-imti7an kabous. The plural is kawabis. For an ordinary dream, one says 7olm or mnam. Note: with the verb 7lem, the word is constructed with the preposition b.
Example
شنو هو أصعف كابوس حلمتي بيه ?
chnou houa as5af kabouss 7lmti bih ?
“What's the most absurd nightmare you've ever had?”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “kabous” but also “kabouss”, “kabus”, “kaboos” and “kabouce”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Type “kabous” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “nightmare, bad dream”; “painful situation, ordeal”: kabous in Tunisian.