purdah

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“
Hussain also said Chand Bibi had expressed her inability to appear in the Supreme Court as she and her family felt it was not appropriate for a purdah-observing Pashtun girl to do so in the presence of TV cameras and onlookers.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A curtain or screen, used mainly in India to keep women separate from men or strangers.
  2. noun The Hindu or Muslim system of sex segregation, practiced especially by keeping women in seclusion.
  3. noun Social seclusion: "Never have artists been more separate: their inordinate fame, wealth, drug use have driven them into luxurious purdah” (D. Keith Mano).

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Examples (50)

  • This purdah may last only a few years, or even a few months, but purdah is where that trilby currently resides and, if I have anything to say about it, where that trilby shall stay.
  • Women who keep out of sight of men are known as purdah-nashin. —  OM: The Secret of Ahbor Valley
  • ECB policymakers enter their pre-meeting "purdah" week on Thursday, when they avoid public comment, without having sent any clear sign that their thinking has changed since early December. —  pfblogs.org: The Ad-Free Personal Finance Blogs Aggregator
  • Hussain also said Chand Bibi had expressed her inability to appear in the Supreme Court as she and her family felt it was not appropriate for a purdah-observing Pashtun girl to do so in the presence of TV cameras and onlookers. —  The Times of India
  • Expression of such opinion from the bench of the Supreme Court is a very serious matter as it is a clear infringement of the religious, civil and human rights of millions Muslims and others who have kept beards and observed purdah, a tradition continuing for over a thousand years in our country, long before anyone heard of the word "Taliban" or its current connotations. —  The Milli Gazette: India, Muslim, Islamic News
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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Urdu pardah, veil, from Persian, from Middle Persian pardak, from Old Persian *paridaka-, from pari-dā-, to place over : pari, around, over; see per1 in Indo-European roots + dā-, to place; see dhē- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Also pardah; from Hindustani parda, a curtain, screen, privacy, Persian parda, a curtain.
  2. purdak, n.
 

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/ˈpərdə/
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