The word Fayn – what does it really mean?

I was coming across the word “fayn” bzaf (alot) and the more I came across it, the more it confused me because the translations kept changing the meaning of fayn. Finally I decided to search for a dictionary. Finding a moroccan-english dictionary is extremely hard, there are not too many copies out there. I did find one with Georgetown university press. In case you are curious you can find and purchase the dictionary here. 

Upon looking for this word ‘fayn’. I found my answer to my confusion. This word has many different meanings and combined with other words can change the meaning of the word fayn to something else. To begin with the word fayn has the following meanings

While to me this seemed like alot, there is more. the phrase “faynek w fayn” means your a long way. An example of this would be “faynek w fayn d dar” meaning your a long way from home.

“faynek 3la” has a meaning of “as for” or meanwhile used when recalling a past event.  “fayn ma” or “fayn emma” mean wherever or anywhere. “ra fayn” means right there or over there. Finally there is rah+personal pronoun fayn which means to be over there. For example “rahu fayn” would mean he is over there. There you have it, “fayn” the word of many words. I find it very interesting that a word can have both positive and negative meanings. With fayn you can have a meaning of a place or no place or anywhere or nowhere. I cannot think of a word in English that has the same properties. Taking a broader look at this word it seems that it’s always being used when referring to location. I suppose if you would like to speak about location, you can’t go wrong using the word fayn.

Word list

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