Almah

//ˈæl.mə// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An Egyptian female singer or dancing-girl used for entertainment; sometimes a prostitute.

    "Nostalgia is almah, the Arab dancing girl. She tells me stories of the drowned, the deadest of this world's dead."

Example

More examples

"Nostalgia is almah, the Arab dancing girl. She tells me stories of the drowned, the deadest of this world's dead."

Etymology

Ultimately from Arabic عَالِمَة (ʕālima, “singer”), originally a feminine adjective meaning ‘learned, knowledgeable’, from عَلِمَ (ʕalima, “to know”).

Related phrases

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