Word.ws English Dictionary

Purim

/ˈpʊəɹɪm/

Purim proper noun: a Jewish festival, celebrated on the fourteenth day of Adar, commemorating the deliverance of the Persian Jews from a complete massacre at the hand of Haman the Amalekite.

Proper noun

Purim

  1. (Judaism) A Jewish festival, celebrated on the fourteenth day of Adar, commemorating the deliverance of the Persian Jews from a complete massacre at the hand of Haman the Amalekite.
    • Today, Jews celebrate the holiday of Purim, a festival of revelry that commemorates their deliverance from an ancient genocidal plot. […] Traditionally, a scroll containing that book is read twice over the holiday, with listeners making noise to drown out the name of the story’s villain, Haman, a...2022 March 17, Yair Rosenberg, “The Anti-Semite on Your TV”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 16 Feb 2024
    • This is a regular shul outfit: the denizens of St John’s Wood United Synagogue are well used to their most colourful member looking like he’s going to a Purim party every week of the year.2023 July 27, Nicole Lampert, quoting Philip Sallon, “Meet the colourful shul regular who admits: ‘I’m quite an extreme person’”, in The Jewish Chronicle, archived from the original on 05 Apr 2026
  2. A surname.

Purim meaning in Marathi and Arabic

Purim in Marathi

Jewish festival
पुरीम purīm

Purim in Arabic

Jewish festival
عِيد الْمَسَاخِر ʕīd al-masāḵir, عِيد السُّكَّر ʕīd as-sukkar, عِيد الفُور ʕīd al-fūr, بُورِيم būrīm

Origin of Purim

Borrowed from Hebrew פּוּרִים (purím, literally “lots”).

Words formed from Purim

Phrases with Purim

Questions about Purim

What does Purim mean?
Purim means a Jewish festival, celebrated on the fourteenth day of Adar, commemorating the deliverance of the Persian Jews from a complete massacre at the hand of Haman the Amalekite.
What is Purim in Marathi?
Purim in Marathi is पुरीम (purīm). See Purim meaning in Marathi.
What part of speech is Purim?
Purim is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce Purim?
Purim is pronounced /ˈpʊəɹɪm/.

Words near Purim in the dictionary

  1. purify
  2. purifying
  3. purifyingly
  4. purifyings
  5. purile
  6. Purim
  7. Purim spiel
  8. Purim spiels
  9. Purimic
  10. purinaemia
  11. purination

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Purim (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Purim.wav.

Cite this entry: “Purim.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/purim. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.