ostad أُستاد
Moroccan Darija · noun
“ostad” (أُستاد) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning teacher, professor.
Meanings
- teacher, professor
- master, expert (in a field)
Usage
Ostad refers to a teacher, from primary school to university. The feminine is ostada and the plural asatida. It is also used to politely address a teacher or a lawyer: a ostad! In online writing, it is found with either د or ذ, the pronunciation generally being "d". By extension, ostad is used for someone very gifted in a field, sometimes ironically. For a primary school teacher, you also hear the French word "maître" or mou3allim. Frequent colloquial use: lostad, "the teacher".
Example
بغيت نكون أستاد
bghit nkoun 2oustad
“I want to become a teacher.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “ostad” but also “oustad”, “stad”, “2ostad”, “ustad” and “ostadh”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Its Arabic spelling is not fixed either: you will find أُستاد and استاذ, all the same word.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 2 is hamza (ء), a glottal stop.
Type “ostad” on the Arabic keyboard
In Algerian Darja
The same word also exists in Algerian Darja, written استاذ, where it means “teacher, professor”; “title for a lawyer”: ostad in Algerian.
In Tunisian Derja
The same word also exists in Tunisian Derja, written استاذ, where it means “professor, teacher”; “lawyer, master (title)”: oustedh in Tunisian.