Word.ws English Dictionary

devadasi

devadasi noun: a girl who underwent the Hindu religious practice of being "married" to a deity. In addition to taking care of the temple, she learned and practiced Bharatanatyam and other classical Indian arts, enjoying high social status.

Noun

devadasi (plural devadasis)

  1. (Hinduism, historical) A girl who underwent the Hindu religious practice of being "married" to a deity. In addition to taking care of the temple, she learned and practiced Bharatanatyam and other classical Indian arts, enjoying high social status.
    • It would be a century before the daughter of another devadasi mesmerized audiences around the world.2017, Sunil Khilnani, Incarnations, Penguin, page 372

devadasi meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Sanskrit

devadasi in Tamil

devadasi
தேவதாசி tēvatāci, தேவடியாள் tēvaṭiyāḷ

devadasi in Bengali

devadasi
দেবদাসী debdaśi

devadasi in Malayalam

devadasi
ദേവദാസി dēvadāsi

devadasi in Sanskrit

devadasi
देवदासी devadāsī

Synonyms of devadasi

Forms of devadasi

pluraldevadasis

Origin of devadasi

From the Sanskrit देवदासी (devá-dāsī, “female servant of a deity”), from देव (devá, “deity, god”) and दासी (dāsī, “a female servant or slave”).

Questions about devadasi

What does devadasi mean?
Devadasi means a girl who underwent the Hindu religious practice of being "married" to a deity. In addition to taking care of the temple, she learned and practiced Bharatanatyam and other classical Indian arts, enjoying high social status.
What is devadasi in Tamil?
Devadasi in Tamil is தேவதாசி (tēvatāci), தேவடியாள் (tēvaṭiyāḷ). See Devadasi meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is devadasi?
Devadasi is a noun.
What is the plural of devadasi?
The plural of devadasi is devadasis.

Words near devadasi in the dictionary

  1. devacuates
  2. devacuating
  3. devacuation
  4. devacuations
  5. devacuumization
  6. devadasi
  7. devadasis
  8. Devadatta
  9. devagueify
  10. Devahuti
  11. Devakanya

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: devadasi (page history and authors); দেবদাসী (Bengali) (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: “devadasi.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/devadasi. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.