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  1. houri love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A voluptuous, alluring woman.
  2. n. One of the beautiful virgins of the Koranic paradise.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. Among the Mohammedans, a nymph of Paradise. In the Koran the houris are represented as beautiful virgins, endowed with unfading youth and immunity from all disease. Their company is to form the chief felicity of the faithful.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Islam A nymph in the form of beautiful virgin supposed to dwell in Paradise for the enjoyment of the faithful.
  2. n. Any voluptuous, beautiful woman.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. A nymph of paradise; -- so called by the Mohammedans.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a voluptuously beautiful young woman
  2. n. (Islam) one of the dark-eyed virgins of perfect beauty believed to live with the blessed in Paradise

Etymologies

  1. From French houri, from Persian حوری, from Arabic حور in حورالعين ‘(women) with eyes like gazelles’. (Wiktionary)
  2. French, from Persian ḥūrī, from Arabic ḥūrīya, nymph, houri, from ḥūr, pl. of 'aḥwaru, feminine of ḥawrā'u, possessing ḥawar, intense whiteness of the sclera contrasting with deep blackness of the iris of the eye; see ḥwr in Semitic roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “His passion for revenge was even more determined than his admiration for the "houri," as he called the maiden.”

    Asiatic Breezes Students on The Wing

  • “Muslims, do you believe "houri" means grapes as some Muslim scholars have interpreted it?”

    Yahoo! Answers: Latest Questions

  • “And beyond his star-gazing, in his far-imagined heavens, Valkyrie or houri, man has fain made place for her, for he could see no heaven without her.”

    Chapter 21

  • “There is nothing carnal intimated at all in the relationship between the righteous soul and the “houri”.”

    Iran War Resolution May Be Passed Next Week « Antiwar.com Blog

  • “She'd worn uncommon well; middle sixties and still shaped like a Turkish belly-dancer, with the same guileless idiot smile and wondrous blue eyes that had set me slavering when she was sixteen - she'd performed like a demented houri then, and who was to say she'd lost the taste in half a century?”

    Fictionaut: Watershed

  • “It was in this spirit that I was able to roger that houri in Borneo during the Batang Lupar battle, whimpering fearfully the while, and do justice to Mrs Popplewell while in flight from the outraged townsfolk of Harper's Ferry.”

    Fictionaut: Watershed

  • “My one regret as I tooled back to London was that I hadn't been able to bid a riotous farewell to Caprice; she'd been worth the trip, ne'er mind spoking Otto's wheel, and I found myself smiling fondly as I thought of Punch and the gauzy lace clinging to that houri shape in the sunlight ...”

    Fictionaut: Watershed

  • “Ilderim grinned and wagged his ugly head, and I cursed, thinking here was some bazaar houri plying her trade where it was least wanted, but I staggered out, and sure enough at the foot of the steps was a veiled woman in a sari, but with a burly-looking escort standing farther back at the gate.”

    Fictionaut: Fiancée

  • “Till you're blue in the face, you darling houri, thinks I - but for answer all I did was kiss her hands.”

    Fictionaut: Fiancée

  • “The light over her bunk flicked on and he was staring into the muzzle of an automatic, held rock-steady by this little houri.”

    Fictionaut: Ten Minutes, That's It

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‘houri’ has been looked up 4648 times, loved by 7 people, added to 21 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 8.