Hamas
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A Palestinian Islamist militant group and political organization.
"Hamas knew there would be massive retaliations."
- 2 Alternative form of Hamas. alt-of, alternative
"He wanted to travel to Gaza in the Palestinian territories to join HAMAS’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade in its fight against Israel."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Israel could have destroyed the Hamas tunnels without killing thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza."
Etymology
Borrowed from Arabic حَمَاس (ḥamās, literally “enthusiasm”), an acronym for حَرَكَة اَلْمُقَاوَمَةِ الْإِسْلَامِيَّةِ (ḥarakat al-muqāwama l-ʔislāmiyya, “Islamic Resistance Movement”). A few speakers pronounce it with /x/ to imitate Hebrew חַמַאס instead.
Borrowed from Arabic حَمَاس (ḥamās, literally “enthusiasm”). The all-capitalized form reflects the term's origin as the Arabic abbreviation of حَرَكَة اَلْمُقَاوَمَةِ الْإِسْلَامِيَّةِ (ḥarakat al-muqāwama l-ʔislāmiyya, “Islamic Resistance Movement”).
Related phrases
More for "hamas"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.