zenzana زنزانة
Moroccan Darija · noun
“zenzana” (زنزانة) is a noun in Moroccan Darija meaning prison cell.
Meanings
- prison cell
- dungeon, solitary confinement
Usage
zenzana comes from Standard Arabic. It refers to the cell in which a detainee is locked up. In darija it is used mainly when talking about prison, arrests or crime news, and it is heard a lot in the media. In informal conversation, people more often say l-7abs, "prison", or lkachou, an adapted borrowing from French "cachot", for solitary confinement. The plural is znazen. The word never refers to a biological cell: in that sense, one says "cellule" in French or khaliya in Standard Arabic.
Example
حطوه بوحدو ف زنزانة
7ettouh bou7do f zenzana
“They put him alone in a cell.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “zenzana” but also “zinzana”, “zanzana” and “znzana”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Type “zenzana” on the Arabic keyboard
In Tunisian Derja
Spelt the same way in Arabic, the word also exists in Tunisian Derja, where it means “prison cell”; “dungeon, isolation cell”: zenzena in Tunisian.