Meaning & use
buqsha
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Meaning
nouncountabletechnicalrare
A former small unit of money in Yemen, worth one fortieth of a Yemeni rial.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a buqsha or two buqsha, though the word is now rarely used.
Patterns
- a buqsha
- forty buqsha in a rial
Old price lists from Yemen sometimes show amounts in buqsha rather than rial.
A buqsha was worth only a tiny fraction of a rial, so it bought very little.
Word forms
| plural | buqsha |
|---|---|
| plural | buqshas |
Common combinations
- a Yemeni buqsha
- Collectors sometimes ask about a Yemeni buqsha from the middle of the last century.
- worth a few buqsha
- In those days a handful of sweets was worth a few buqsha.
- forty buqsha to the rial
- The old system had forty buqsha to the rial.
Synonyms and how they differ
- fils
- A fils is a similar low-value coin used in several Arab countries, but it belongs to different currencies, not Yemen's.
- piastre
- A piastre was a small unit in various Middle Eastern currencies; it is a broader term and not specific to Yemen.
Word family
- rial noun
- The main currency unit of Yemen and several other countries, of which the buqsha was a fraction.
Commonly confused: buqsha or bukka?
buqsha vs bukka
Bukka is not a standard English word; learners may mishear buqsha because the sounds are similar.
Practice
Which sentence uses "buqsha" correctly?
Choose one answer.
Forty buqsha once made one rial, so option A matches the historical value. Option D is wrong because the buqsha is a small fraction, not the main unit, and is no longer in everyday use.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “buqsha”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.