lma3icha لمعيشة
Moroccan Darija · noun
“lma3icha” (لمعيشة) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning cost of living.
Meanings
- cost of living
- daily life, livelihood
Usage
Lme3icha refers to material life: what one needs to live and what it costs. It is heard mostly in conversations about prices and purchasing power, notably in the set phrase lme3icha ghalya, "life is expensive". The word is common in speech as well as in the press. It does not mean life in the existential sense, which is l7ayat or dunya. It is also distinct from l3icha, "the fact of living" or "the way of living".
Example
لمعيشة ولات غالية بزاف
lme3icha walat ghalya bzaf
“The cost of living has become very high.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “lma3icha” but also “lme3icha” and “lma3isha”. 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.