khmsa w 3echrin خمسة وعشرين
Moroccan Darija · numeral
“khmsa w 3echrin” (خمسة وعشرين) is a numeral in Moroccan Darija meaning twenty-five.
Meanings
- twenty-five
Usage
Khmsa w 3echrin is built like the other compound numbers: the unit comes first, then w (and), then the ten. The noun that follows stays singular: khmsa w 3echrin derhem. For time, this number is not used to say "twenty-five minutes": one says khms qsam, a qsam being five minutes. For prices, you need to know whether the amount is in dirhams or ryals, since counting in ryals is still common in everyday speech.
Example
هاد الكتاب جا ليا بخمسة وعشرين درهم
had lktab ja liya b khmsa w 3echrin derhem
“This book cost me twenty-five dirhams.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “khmsa w 3echrin” but also “5msa w 3chrin”, “khamsa w 3ichrin”, “khmsa o 3echrin” and “5msa ou 3achrin”. 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; 5 is kha (خ), like the ch in Scottish loch.