From khaleej, 'the Gulf'. Khaleeji describes the shared culture of the six GCC states — the dialect, the music, the dress, the sensibility — as distinct from Levantine, Egyptian, or North African Arab identity.

Used for everything from a style of pop music to a way of cooking rice. When someone says a dish, a song, or a manner of speaking is 'very khaleeji', they mean it is unmistakably of this corner of the world.