rokba ركبة
Moroccan Darija · noun
“rokba” (ركبة) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning knee.
Meanings
- knee
Usage
Rokba is the usual word for the knee. Its plural is rkabi, frequently used: 3la rkabi, "on one's knees." With a possessive pronoun, one says rokbti, "my knee," or rokbtu, "his knee." It is heard a lot in health complaints (katderrni rokbti, "my knee hurts") and in sports vocabulary. The word also appears in proverbs where the knee symbolizes support or family backing. The vowel of the first syllable varies among speakers, between rokba and rekba.
Example
كتضرني ركبتي ملي كنطلع الدروج
katderrni rokbti mli kantle3 ddrouj
“My knee hurts when I climb the stairs.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “rokba” but also “rkba” and “rekba”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Type “rokba” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “knee”: rokba in Tunisian.