# Ok



## Qcumber

What is the most common Arabic term that means "OK"?


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## suma

I believe that would be        حسناً


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## SarahBeth

طيب is used.


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## xebonyx

Isn't "Hasanan" less modern? I thought it actually meant "fine".


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## elroy

حسنًا (_7asanan_) is standard and طيب (_Tayyeb_) is colloquial.


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## Beate

hello,
it depends on the region.
People in north-africa rather say daccoordoo (derivation from french d'accord) or bahy  (I don't know what the origin of this word is) bahy is also used in the sense of good, fine. You can say for example for a dish like a couscous that it is bahy.

Bye Beate


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## cyclodextrin

I recently visited Egypt and there they said,

meshi

not sure if that is the correct transliteration but thats how it sounded.


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## elroy

Yes, "maashi" (the vowel sound is somewhere between an "a" and an "e," but it's usually transliterated as an "a") is common in several dialects (including mine).


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## Qcumber

Thanks a lot for your answers.
Is there such a term as *tamma *that would mean OK?


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## elroy

In Palestinian Arabic we can say "*tamaam*" to mean "Ok" in the sense of "good, great, nice, fine" (i.e. not in the sense of "I agree.")

"Tamma," however is an MSA word meaning "It has been completed/fulfilled."  Don't know if it means something else in (an)other dialect(s).


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## cherine

In Egypt we use tamaam تمام and maashi ماشي , and sometimes maashi tamaam ماشي تمام or tamaam maashi تمام ماشي 
Oh we love emphasis 

By the way, many Egyptians, educated or not, use ok أوكي or أوكيه with a very slight "h" at the end.


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## Qcumber

So the term is tamaam, not tamma. Thanks a lot.

As regards the Egyptian version of OK, I'm not surprised as it has become a universal expression.


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## elroy

Qcumber said:


> As regards the Egyptian version of OK, I'm not surprised as it has become a universal expression.


 Indeed, we use it too.


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## DrLindenbrock

What about جيد / jayyid ?
I've heard it used interchangeably with طيب / Tayyib ... are both considered colloquial?


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## Tariq_Ibn_zyad

Beate said:


> hello,
> it depends on the region.
> People in north-africa rather say daccoordoo (derivation from french d'accord) or bahy  (I don't know what the origin of this word is) bahy is also used in the sense of good, fine. You can say for example for a dish like a couscous that it is bahy.
> 
> Bye Beate


you talk about tunisiansnot north africans,don't forget there are more differences between the dialect within morocco than between countries in the middle east. baahi means "fine","good","ok","beautiful" and it is typically tunisian...in morocco we'd rather say "Saafi" (which can mean "ok","enough",fine","light(coulour)","pure"..etc) or "wakhkha"...in algeria i'm not quite sure but i think "mli7" would be fine(this word is from the same root as syrian "mni7)

I know this what not the question,it was just to complete your answer about north africa


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## elroy

DrLindenbrock said:


> What about جيد / jayyid ?
> I've heard it used interchangeably with طيب / Tayyib ... are both considered colloquial?


 We do not use "jayyid" in Palestinian Arabic.  To us, it is an MSA word.


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## linguist786

Just a quick question about "tamaam" since it's been mentioned:

Has the word got something to do with "all" (or something like that?) because the word also exists in Urdu, and we use it to mean "all" usually. For example: "tamaam log" = "all the people".


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## elroy

Yes, the word technically means "completion, fulfillment."  It is the maSdar of the verb "tamma."  

When you say that everything is "tamaam," you're saying that it's "complete" or "perfect," hence OK.


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