7rif حريف
Tunisian Derja · noun
“7rif” (حريف) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning shop customer.
Meanings
- shop customer
- skilled, gifted, an ace
Usage
The word 7rif commonly refers to the customer of a shop, a café or a craftsman: one speaks of a shopkeeper's 7rifa, the most common plural. In colloquial speech, it also describes someone very talented in a field. A player is said to be 7rif fil koura, "a football ace". In this second sense, it often works as an admiring adjective. Watch out: for anyone who knows Standard Arabic, the word evokes a "rival", a sense that is not the most common in Tunisia. Context distinguishes the customer from the virtuoso.
Example
الحريف ديما عندو الحق.
el 7rif dima 3andou el 7a9.
“The customer is always right.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “7rif” but also “hrif”, “7rife” and “hrifa”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.
Digits stand in for Arabic letters that have no Latin equivalent: 7 is ha (ح), a breathy h from the throat.