imam
/ˈiːmɑːm/
imam noun: one who leads the salat prayers in a mosque.
Noun
imam (plural imams)
- One who leads the salat prayers in a mosque.
- Now it chanced that in one of the mosques was an Imam. (footnote: The person specially appointed to lead the prayers of the congregation and paid out of the endowed revenues of the mosque to which he is attached)1901, John Payne, Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp
- But then there's a Christian cleric and an imam on each of the country's three regional censorship boards, in Kaduna, Lagos and Onitsha, although more than one producer told me that the brown envelope worked the same magic here as in any other Nigerian Government department.2001 May 10, London Review of Books
- A Shi'ite Muslim leader descended from the prophet Muhammad and functioning as his spiritual successor.
- One of the Twelve imams, descendants of Muhammad from the seventh to ninth centuries CE who lived exemplary lives.
Proper noun capitalized: Imam
Imam (plural Imams)
- A surname from Arabic.
imam meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
imam in Hindi
- Muslim leader
- इमाम imām
imam in Tamil
- Muslim leader
- இமாம் imām
imam in Marathi
- इमाम
imam in Urdu
- Muslim leader
- اِمام imām, آخُونْد āxūnd
More languagesFewer languages
- imam in Bengali
- ইমাম imam
- imam in Telugu
- ఇమామ్ imām
- imam in Malayalam
- ഇമാം imāṁ
- imam in Kannada
- ಇಮಾಮ್, ಇಮಾಂ
- imam in Punjabi
- امام īmām, ਇਮਾਮ imām
- imam in Gujarati
- ઇમામ imām
- imam in Odia
- ଇମାମ୍, ଇମାମ
- imam in Nepali
- इमाम
- imam in Pashto
- امام emām
- imam in Arabic
- إِمَام ʔimām
- imam in Malay
- imam
- imam in Indonesian
- imam
- imam in Thai
- อิหม่าม ì-màam
- Dhivehi
- އިމާމް imām̊
Examples of imam in a sentence
- In the 1980s, roughly six hundred young Algerian men, many of them protégés of Muslim Brothers from Egypt and Wahhabi imams from Saudi Arabia, went to Afghanistan to join the anti-Soviet jihad.2004 October 7, London Review of Books, page 3:
- Sheik Mohammad Seyed Tantawi, Egypt’s highest-ranking imam, led the prayers over the coffin, covered with an Egyptian flag.2007 April 10, Howard Blum, “Who Killed Ashraf Marwan?”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Apr 2023, retrieved 18 Sep...
Forms of imam
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | imams |
| alternative form (archaic) | imaum |
| alternative form (archaic) | iman |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Imams |
Origin of imam
Borrowed from Arabic إِمَام (ʔimām, “leader”).
Occupational surname, borrowed from Arabic إمام (ʔimām). This surname is mostly found in Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
Words formed from imam
Words that rhyme with imam
Questions about imam
- What does imam mean?
- Imam means one who leads the salat prayers in a mosque.
- What is imam in Hindi?
- Imam in Hindi is इमाम (imām). See Imam meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use imam in a sentence?
- In the 1980s, roughly six hundred young Algerian men, many of them protégés of Muslim Brothers from Egypt and Wahhabi imams from Saudi Arabia, went to Afghanistan to join the anti-Soviet jihad.
- What part of speech is imam?
- Imam can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce imam?
- Imam is pronounced /ˈiːmɑːm/.
- What is the plural of imam?
- The plural of imam is imams.
Words near imam in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: imam (page history and authors); Imam (page history and authors); imam (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); imam (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); امام (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ઇમામ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); imam (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); imam (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-imam.wav.
Cite this entry: “imam.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/imam. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.