Word.ws English Dictionary

dervish in Arabic

دَرْوِيش darwīš

/ˈdɜː(ɹ)vɪʃ//ˈdɜːvɪʃ/

dervish in Arabic: دَرْوِيش (darwīš). In English, dervish means a citizen or inhabitant of Darawiish (circa 1895–1920 C.E.), an anti-colonial polity in modern Somalia headed by Sufis.

Arabic words for dervish

Sufi ascetic
دَرْوِيش darwīš

English meaning of dervish

  1. noun A citizen or inhabitant of Darawiish (circa 1895–1920 C.E.), an anti-colonial polity in modern Somalia headed by Sufis.
  2. noun One of the followers of Muhammad Ahmad, the Mahdi of the Sudan, in the 1880s.
  3. noun Any irregular guerrilla fighter resembling the Sudanese Mahdi in equipment, uniform, tactics, etc.

Full definition of dervish

Synonyms of dervish

dervish in other languages

Questions about dervish in Arabic

What is the meaning of dervish in Arabic?
Dervish in Arabic is دَرْوِيش (darwīš).
ما معنى كلمة dervish؟
Dervish: دَرْوِيش (darwīš).
What does dervish mean in English?
Dervish means a citizen or inhabitant of Darawiish (circa 1895–1920 C.E.), an anti-colonial polity in modern Somalia headed by Sufis.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dervish (page history and authors), its translation table and English meanings. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the Arabic words and English meanings and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dervish.wav.

Cite this page: “dervish meaning in Arabic.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/arabic/dervish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.