TLDR
- The everyday word for "finished," "enough," or "OK" in Egyptian Arabic (Masri) is خلاص (khalas) — neutral register, used constantly.
- Said alone, it closes something out: a task, a topic, a complaint.
- In a negotiation, it turns into "final" — the line you won't move past.
- In a personal moment, it can mean "that settles it" — as in, you now belong.
- Real examples: عشرين جنيه وخلاص (eshreen geneh w khalas) while haggling, or إنتي واحدة مننا خلاص (Enti wahda mennena khalas) welcoming someone into the family.
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The real answer: خلاص (khalas)
Khalas doesn't translate to one English word so much as it translates to a feeling: this is settled. What's settled changes with the situation, but the word itself doesn't. That's the whole trick of it.
خلاص
khalas
"Finished / Enough / OK"
Said on its own, khalas closes something out — a chore that's done, a topic that's been talked to death, a complaint you're ready to drop. It's the verbal equivalent of putting a hand up: we're done here.
The words that travel with it
Khalas doesn't always stand alone. Attach it to the end of a sentence and it draws a hard line under whatever came before:
| Script | Transliteration | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| عشرين جنيه وخلاص | eshreen geneh w khalas | "Twenty pounds, final" |
| إنتي واحدة مننا خلاص | Enti wahda mennena khalas | "You're one of us now" |
Notice these two examples are doing almost opposite jobs — one shuts down a negotiation, the other opens up a relationship — and khalas is the hinge for both.
One word, four jobs
Here's what actually happens to khalas as the context shifts:
Finished. Said by itself after a task, it just means done. No drama, no explanation needed.
Enough. Said mid-conversation, it means stop — you've heard enough, said enough, or had enough.
Final. In the haggling example, عشرين جنيه وخلاص (eshreen geneh w khalas), khalas is what turns a number into a boundary. It's not "twenty pounds, maybe" — it's "twenty pounds, and that conversation is over."
Belonging. The idiomatic use is the one that surprises people: إنتي واحدة مننا خلاص (Enti wahda mennena khalas), "you're one of us now." Here khalas isn't closing a task or a deal — it's closing the distance between an outsider and a family. The same sense of "settled, no more discussion needed" just gets pointed at a relationship instead of a price.
Why this matters beyond one word
A phrasebook will hand you "khalas = finished" and leave it there, which is technically correct and still leaves you unprepared the first time someone says it to welcome you into their family instead of to end an argument. The real skill isn't memorizing a definition — it's noticing that Egyptian Arabic reuses a small set of flexible words across very different emotional registers, and khalas is one of the clearest examples of that pattern.
It's not alone in that pattern. See What Does "Yalla" Mean? for a word that starts plans, hurries slowpokes, and closes conversations, and What Does "Malesh" Mean? for the one that smooths over almost any awkward moment.
The bottom line
Khalas means finished, enough, final, or settled — and which one you're hearing depends entirely on what came right before it. Once you can feel that shift in real time, you're not just translating the word anymore, you're reading the room the way a Masri speaker does.
Try it out loud, free, on SpeakMasri, no account required.