sheikh
/ʃeɪk/ noun, proper noun
- noun The leader of an Arab village, family or small tribe.
- noun An Islamic religious cleric; the master of a Sufi order.
- noun (some Arab Gulf countries) An official title for members of the royal family as well as some prominent families.
- noun (slang, archaic) A romantic lover.
- noun (slang) An Arab, especially one dressed in traditional clothing.
- noun A member of one of the three hereditary, traditionally endogamous Yazidi castes, taking certain spiritual and leadership roles.
- noun An honorific for specialists in spirituality, for example in Sufism.
- noun The title of a sheikh.
- proper noun A surname from Arabic
Synonyms
Etymology
From Arabic شَيْخ (šayḵ, “elder”). Sense 4 (“a romantic lover”) is from the 1921 film The Sheik.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “sheikh”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details