Word.ws English Dictionary

Khariji

Khariji noun: a member of an early Islamic sect who initially supported Ali, but then seceded from his army.

Noun

Khariji (plural Kharijis or Khawarij)

  1. (historical) A member of an early Islamic sect who initially supported Ali, but then seceded from his army.
    • His keynote speech was delivered on his arrival, incognito, in al-Kufah, which at the time was a focus of Khariji dissidence.2019, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Arabs, Yale University Press, page 247
  2. (derogatory) A member of an Islamist terrorist organization, such as the Islamic State or al-Qaeda.

Forms of Khariji

pluralKharijis
pluralKhawarij
alternative formKhāriji

Origin of Khariji

Borrowed from Arabic خارجي (“abandoner, quitter”).

Questions about Khariji

What does Khariji mean?
Khariji means a member of an early Islamic sect who initially supported Ali, but then seceded from his army.
What part of speech is Khariji?
Khariji is a noun.
What is the plural of Khariji?
The plural of Khariji is Kharijis.

Words near Khariji in the dictionary

  1. Kharia
  2. Kharias
  3. Kharibam
  4. Khariboli
  5. kharif
  6. Khariji
  7. Kharijis
  8. Kharijism
  9. Kharijite
  10. Kharijites
  11. kharita

Source and license

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