Hegira

//ˈhɛd͡ʒɪɹə// name, noun

name, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A journey taken to escape from danger; an exodus.

    "By all odds the most remarkable westward migration before the California gold rush of 1849 was the Mormon hegira to the Great Salt Lake basin."

  2. 2
    a journey by a large group to escape from a hostile environment wordnet
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    Alternative form of Hijra. alt-of, alternative

Example

More examples

"By all odds the most remarkable westward migration before the California gold rush of 1849 was the Mormon hegira to the Great Salt Lake basin."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Arabic هِجْرَة (hijra, “exodus; emigration”). Doublet of hijra.

Etymology 2

From Medieval Latin hegira, from Arabic هِجْرَة (hijra, “Hijra; emigration”), from the verb هَجَرَ (hajara, “to emigrate; to abandon”). Doublet of Hijra, directly from Arabic.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.