sen سن
Tunisian Derja · noun
“sen” (سن) is a noun in Tunisian Derja meaning tooth.
Meanings
- tooth
- age
Usage
In everyday speech, sen means first of all "tooth". The plural is snin or snen depending on the region, and you say senni ywaja3 fiya for "I have a toothache". The sense of "age" belongs more to standard Arabic. It appears in fixed expressions such as fi sen ez-zwej, "of marriageable age", or kbir fil sen, "elderly". To ask someone's age, people usually say 9addech 3omrek instead. Context always makes clear which sense is meant.
Example
سنّي يوجع فيّ، لازمني نمشي للطبيب.
senni youja3 fiya, lazemni nemchi lel tbib.
“I have a toothache, I need to go to the doctor.”
How to write it in Latin letters
In Arabizi, Darija written in Latin letters, you will find “sen” but also “senn”, “sinn” and “snin”. No spelling is official: people write the sounds as they hear them.