Word.ws English Dictionary

ulama

ulama noun: a modern ball game descended from tlachtli. Also the alternative form of ulema.

Noun (1)

ulama (uncountable)

  1. A modern ball game descended from tlachtli.

Noun (2)

ulama

  1. The devil bird (an avian cryptid of Sri Lanka)
    • There is a bird in Ceylon, which the natives call ulama, or the demon bird, which utters most loud and ear-piercing screams, strongly resembling the shrieks of a human being in severe bodily agony.1849 June, The Dublin University Magazine, page 692

Also used as

ulama is also the alternative form of ulema.

Origin of ulama

Ultimately from Classical Nahuatl ōllamaliztli. Doublet of ullamaliztli.

Borrowed from Arabic عُلَمَاء (ʕulamāʔ). Doublet of ulema and olema.

Borrowed from Sinhalese [Term?].

Questions about ulama

What does ulama mean?
Ulama means a modern ball game descended from tlachtli.
What part of speech is ulama?
Ulama is a noun.

Words near ulama in the dictionary

  1. Uladzislau
  2. Ulaid
  3. Ulam
  4. Ulam spiral
  5. Ulam spirals
  6. ulama
  7. Ulamambri
  8. ulan
  9. Ulan Bator
  10. Ulan-Ude
  11. Ulangochuian

Source and license

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