ma7sour محصور
Tunisian Derja · adjective
“ma7sour” (محصور) is an adjective in Tunisian Derja meaning desperate for the toilet.
Meanings
- desperate for the toilet
- stuck, trapped, confined
Usage
Ma7sour is used first of someone who urgently needs to go to the toilet: rani ma7sour (“I'm desperate for the toilet”). It is a colloquial but not vulgar word, and very common. It also applies to something stuck or shut in: 3andou hwa ma7sour (“he has trapped air”, for example in the stomach). It is also said of a person stuck in a situation. The feminine is ma7soura. Note: in Standard Arabic, the word mainly evokes the idea of “limited, restricted”. This sense exists in Tunisian, but it is much less frequent in speech.
Example
وقّف الكرهبة، راني محصور.
wa9af el karhba, rani ma7sour.
“Stop the car, I'm desperate for the toilet.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “ma7sour” but also “mahsour”, “ma7sor”, “mehsour” and “m7asour”. 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.