Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A flight to escape danger.
- n. The flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D., marking the beginning of the Muslim era.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. See hejira.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The flight of Mohammed from Mecca, September 13, a. d. 622 (subsequently established as the first year of the Moslem era); hence, any flight or exodus regarded as like that of Mohammed.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a journey by a large group to escape from a hostile environment
- n. the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 which marked the beginning of the Muslim era; the Muslim calendar begins in that year
Etymologies
- Arabic breaking-off (Wiktionary)
- Medieval Latin, from Arabic hijra, emigration, flight, from hajara, to depart; see hgr in Semitic roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“While keeping the above definitions in mind---I want to provide some more background--As my previous posts indicated--the muslims of Mecca had been persecuted in Mecca and they eventually fled to Medina--the event is called the hegira and the start Year one of the muslim calender.”
“Kahlil started in again on his epic, the hegira that had brought him from Lebanon to Egypt and Italy and Spain via the ports and the jails.”
“Yet, palpitating and real, shimmering in the sun-flashed dust of ten thousand hoofs, she saw pass, from East to West, across a continent, the great hegira of the land-hungry”
“Before we embarked on our hegira, I had given niece Felice the assignment of researching Elvis' life and extreme death.”
“Their good-riddances competed with one tape that played over and over and over for the entire journey, a new album by the Grateful Dead that had become the leitmotif of their hippie hegira.”
“The childrens 'headlong hegira for the door was immediate except for Speranz, who missed a precious couple of seconds in slow comprehension.”
“The piece tracked the hegira back to the city by sophisticated urbanites who left their McMansions to return to Tribeca (rhymes with "Mecca").”
“This, to borrow a name from the most memorable instance of outward change marking inward revolution, was the decisive hegira, from which the philosophy of destruction in a formal shape may be held seriously to date.”
“The Mahometans have no certain chronology before their hegira.”
“Rather than spark a wholesale hegira back to the central city, big gas and electricity bills are more likely to produce a bracing new era of innovation in suburban and even exurban life.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hegira’.
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A Sequel to 250 Spelling Words
Words to quiz the intermediate and advanced speller alike
sinopia, replevin, lathee, hoisin, kerygma, czardas, amoxicillin, talipes, simoleon, hypermnesia, anodyne, mystique and 238 more...
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harmonygritz's Cross Words
Words discovered while doing puzzles. Includes puns, e.g. taper vs. tapir.
hodad, hart, avocet, cahier, blackbird, brace, fetor, Bren, Rialto, bijou, liveried, stentor and 64 more...
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Sanskritist
Ancient Vedic language of India, Yoga, Buddhism and Hinduism
turmeric, soma, shruti, shanti, hrdaya, samsara, mukta, jnana, namaste, atman, tara, citta and 92 more...
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kalidas's Words
crepuscular, mellifluous, ephemeral, diaphanous, zeitgeist, geisterfahrer, infinite, eternal, idyllic, azure, reminiscent, oblivion and 521 more...
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andystardust's Words
liminal, soporific, solipsism, calumny, sanguine, egregious, inimical, corpus, divulge, a fortiori, salutary, evanescence and 118 more...
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Niels's Words
bien-pensant, pro re nata, zeitgeist, naïve, quod erat demonst..., dramastic, mélange, amanuensis, heuristic, hermeneutic, gist, gumption and 157 more...
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There's a word for that?
temerity, tacit, froward, faineant, caterwaul, menagerie, ennui, sine qua non, lissom, multifarious, laconic, katzenjammer and 240 more...
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Arabic
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madamepsychosis's Words
mollify, salubrious, prandial, coup de grace, ineluctable, metempsychosis, pedant, conatus, oeuvre, laconic, solipsism, vapid and 265 more...
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Test-words
rarefy, occlude, bolt, lambaste, career, careen, largesse, enormity, neologism, quizzical, sibyl, euphony and 105 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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tez's Words
tain, curlicue, eidolon, exoteric, puissant, ragamuffin, insouciant, yarrow, taciturn, mundane, vomitorium, tenebre and 140 more...
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richardr's Words
marmoreal, osteology, tyromancy, metalepsis, idioglossia, tapinosis, epicaricacy, carromancy, rogation, senex, aulic, gemütlichkeit and 279 more...
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vocab
hard word word 4 strong vocab
ostracize, importune, impute, scintillate, mulct, deprecate, procrastinate, rusticate, vegetate, expiate, emulate, gesticulate and 345 more...
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GRE uncommon
patronage, expletive, exhort, exegesis, execrable, excommunicate, evince, escarpment, ersatz, ergo, epoxy, snare and 1202 more...
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Words I should know
Words found in vocabulary lists that I don't really know or haven't heard before. Removed when I see them in a sentence somewhere. Moved to "Words I've learned just now" if I didn't recognize it ...
moiety, abrogate, abstemious, acumen, bowdlerize, enervate, expurgate, gauche, hegemony, inculcate, jejune, quasar and 45 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hegira.
andystardust Joni Mitchell apparently preferred hejira. Mar 29, 2009
seanahan I thought this word would have some similarity to exodus, but this word is from Arabic, which is significantly closer to Hebrew than exodus, which is from Greek. Aug 13, 2007
sera "A journey by a large group to escape from a hostile environment" Aug 13, 2007