Word.ws English Dictionary

maulvi

/ˈmaʊlvi/

maulvi noun: an imam; a Muslim doctor of law.

Noun

maulvi (plural maulvis)

  1. An imam; a Muslim doctor of law.
  2. (South-Asia, broadly) Any man of learning; a scholar, a teacher of Classical languages.
    • He had a maulvi and a pandit to teach him Urdu and Hindi.2004, Khushwant Singh, Burial at Sea, Penguin, published 2014, page 10

maulvi meaning in Hindi and Bengali

maulvi in Hindi

maulvi, cleric
मौलवी maulvī

maulvi in Bengali

maulvi
মৌলবী mōulbi

Forms of maulvi

pluralmaulvis
alternative formmolvi
alternative formmoulvi
alternative formmawlawi

Origin of maulvi

From Urdu مولوی (maulvi), and its source, Classical Persian مولوی (mawlawī), noun use of Arabic مَوْلَوِيّ (mawlawiyy, “of a lord or master”), ultimately from مَوْلًى (mawlan, “master”). Compare Mevlevi, mullah, maulana.

Questions about maulvi

What does maulvi mean?
Maulvi means an imam; a Muslim doctor of law.
What is maulvi in Hindi?
Maulvi in Hindi is मौलवी (maulvī). See Maulvi meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is maulvi?
Maulvi is a noun.
How do you pronounce maulvi?
Maulvi is pronounced /ˈmaʊlvi/.
What is the plural of maulvi?
The plural of maulvi is maulvis.

Words near maulvi in the dictionary

  1. maulstick
  2. maulsticks
  3. Maultasch
  4. Maultsby
  5. Maultsbys
  6. maulvi
  7. Maulvibazar District
  8. maulvis
  9. maum
  10. mauma
  11. maumas

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: maulvi (page history and authors); मौलवी (Hindi) (page history and authors); মৌলবী (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: “maulvi.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/maulvi. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.