What does “kanza mashruba” mean in Egyptian Arabic?
ازاي نرجع الكنزات المشروبة جديدة ونبيعها
B1 Arabic listening practice · Egyptian Arabic · Picked for people who know some
كنزة مشروبة (kanza mashruba), literally “a drunk sweater,” is Egyptian Arabic for a sweatshirt that’s been worn into oblivion. The verb مشروب (mashrub) is the passive of “to drink,” and applied to clothing it means saturated, faded, beaten up by repeated washings. A kanza mashruba is the top you’d wear to clean the apartment.
This clip flips the slang into a hustle: the speaker explains how to refurbish كنزات مشروبة and resell them as new. The “drunk clothes” metaphor extends across Egyptian street vocabulary. Food gets ملطّش (smeared), phones get مفلوق (cracked open). Worn things drink themselves into ruin, and Egyptians have a ready-made way to describe it.
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Harder words in this video
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸In Egyptian YouTube channels about thrift, hustle, and resourcefulness
- ▸In Egyptian fashion content about styling old or vintage clothing
- ▸In Egyptian Mom-and-pop store videos describing inventory
- ▸In Egyptian standup making jokes about the clothes you can’t bring yourself to throw out
- ▸In Egyptian conversation about bala (junk) and what’s worth keeping