caliph
/ˈkeɪlɪf/ noun
Forms caliphs khalifa caleef calif kaleefa kalif kaliph khalif khaleefeh
- noun The holder of a monarchical title based on a claim to be a successor of Muhammad. “The Abbasid caliphs patronized art and science beside religious developments ushering in the Islamic Golden Age when their capital Baghdad began to flourish as a center of knowledge, culture and trade.”
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English calife, caliphe, from Old French caliphe, from Medieval Latin calipha, from Arabic خَلِيفَة (ḵalīfa, “caliph”) and خَلِيف (ḵalīf, “successor”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun Successor or vicar; --a title of the successors of Mohammed both as temporal and spiritual rulers, now used by the sultans of Turkey, [Writting also calif.]
Etymology [OE. caliphe, califfe, F. calife (cf. Sp. califa), fr. Ar. khalifan successor, fr. khalafa to succed.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “caliph”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details