loubana لوبانة

Tunisian Derja · noun

“loubana” (لوبانة) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning chewing gum.

Meanings

1. chewing gum
2. overused, endlessly rehashed topic
3. person or thing pushed around

Usage

Loubana means chewing gum. The word is very common in everyday speech: you ask for a loubana, you chew loubana. It also has a frequent figurative use: something chewed over and over, a topic rehashed until it loses its meaning, or a person pushed around by everyone. Saying a notion has become loubana means people talk about it endlessly and emptily. The register is informal. For an English speaker, the pitfall is to see only the sweet, whereas the figurative sense, often pejorative, comes up a lot in debates and on social media.

Example

How to write it in Latin letters

In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “loubana” but also “lubana”, “lobana” and “loubena”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.

Type “loubana” on the Arabic keyboard