Word.ws English Dictionary

dervise

dervise is the archaic 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 dervise

pluraldervises

Questions about dervise

What is dervise the archaic form of?
Dervise is the archaic form of dervish.

Words near dervise in the dictionary

  1. dervich
  2. derviche
  3. derviches
  4. dervillite
  5. dervis
  6. dervise
  7. dervises
  8. dervish
  9. Dervish state
  10. dervishes
  11. dervishhood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dervise (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: “dervise.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dervise. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.