Word.ws English Dictionary

dervich

dervich is the obsolete form of dervish.

Meaning of dervish

Noun

dervish (plural dervishes)

  1. (historical) A citizen or inhabitant of Darawiish (circa 1895–1920 C.E.), an anti-colonial polity in modern Somalia headed by Sufis.
    Synonyms:
    fakir
  2. (historical) One of the followers of Muhammad Ahmad, the Mahdi of the Sudan, in the 1880s.
    Synonyms:
    fakir
  3. (broadly) Any irregular guerrilla fighter resembling the Sudanese Mahdi in equipment, uniform, tactics, etc.
    • The Hejaz war, meanwhile, would be one of dervishes against regular troops.1926, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, New York: Anchor, published 1991, page 104
    Synonyms:
    fakir

See all 5 meanings of dervish

Forms of dervich

pluralderviches

Questions about dervich

What is dervich the obsolete form of?
Dervich is the obsolete form of dervish.

Words near dervich in the dictionary

  1. Deruta
  2. deruxtecan
  3. derv
  4. dervice
  5. dervices
  6. dervich
  7. derviche
  8. derviches
  9. dervillite
  10. dervis
  11. dervise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dervich (page history and authors); dervish (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dervich.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dervich. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.