johar
UK/ˈdʒəʊhɑː/
johar noun: the Rajput practice whereby women are sacrificed in a fire to avoid their being captured by an enemy.
Noun
johar (uncountable)
- The Rajput practice whereby women are sacrificed in a fire to avoid their being captured by an enemy.
- Probably the most famous immolation of women was the johar, or mass suicide, at Fort Chittor in the thirteenth century, when the Rajput women in the fort were burned to avoid being captured by a licentious Mogul invader.1993, Leigh Minturn, Sita's Daughters, page 230
- No flames here, though; the last ones were quenched over two hundred years ago when Rani Padmini and her women jumped into the johar fires the day Alauddin Khilji captured Chittor.1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins, published 2013, page 10
Forms of johar
| alternative form | jauhar |
|---|---|
| alternative form | juhar |
Questions about johar
- What does johar mean?
- Johar means the Rajput practice whereby women are sacrificed in a fire to avoid their being captured by an enemy.
- What part of speech is johar?
- Johar is a noun.
- How do you pronounce johar?
- Johar is pronounced /ˈdʒəʊhɑː/ (UK).
Words near johar in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: johar (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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