saraf
/saˈɹɑːf/
saraf noun: a provider of financial services in the Middle East and in South Asia, especially (historical) during the early modern and colonial period.
Noun
saraf (plural sarafs)
- A provider of financial services in the Middle East and in South Asia, especially (historical) during the early modern and colonial period.
- There is in euery place of the street exchangers of mony, by them called Xaraffos, which are all christian Iewes.1598, Jan Huygen van Linschoten, translated by William Phillip, Discours of Voyages into ye Easte & West Indies, Bk. i, Ch. xxxiii, p. 66
- He sent us to receive the money from his Saraf, or banker.1811, Carsten Niebuhr, “Travels in Arabia”, in John Pinkerton, transl., A General Collection of Voyages and Travels..., volume X, page 71
Proper noun capitalized: Saraf
Saraf (plural Sarafs)
- A surname from Hindi, Urdu, Persian, or Arabic, of Indian usage.
Forms of saraf
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | sarafs |
| alternative form (obsolete) | xaraffe |
| alternative form (obsolete) | xaraffo |
| alternative form (obsolete) | charaff |
| alternative form (obsolete) | xaraf |
| alternative form (obsolete) | xaroff |
| alternative form (obsolete) | xeraffo |
| alternative form (obsolete) | sarraf |
| alternative form (obsolete) | saraff |
| alternative form (obsolete) | serof |
| alternative form (obsolete) | seraff |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Sarafs |
Origin of saraf
Borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi सर्राफ़ (sarrāf) / Urdu صَرَّاف (sarrāf) and Classical Persian صَرَّاف (sarrāf), from Arabic صَرَّاف (ṣarrāf).
Borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi सर्राफ़ (sarrāf) / Urdu صَرَّاف (sarrāf, “money charger”) and Classical Persian صَرَّاف (sarrāf), from Arabic صَرَّاف (ṣarrāf).
Words formed from saraf
Questions about saraf
- What does saraf mean?
- Saraf means a provider of financial services in the Middle East and in South Asia, especially (historical) during the early modern and colonial period.
- What part of speech is saraf?
- Saraf can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce saraf?
- Saraf is pronounced /saˈɹɑːf/.
- What is the plural of saraf?
- The plural of saraf is sarafs.
Words near saraf in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: saraf (page history and authors); Saraf (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:
Cite this entry: “saraf.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/saraf. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.