Effendi
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 An educated or well-respected man in an eastern Mediterranean or Arab country; often used as a title of respect or courtesy in Turkey or a former Ottoman territory.
"The real problem of the Arabian population in Palestine is how to get rid of the economic domination and control by approximately 100 families of effendi who now own the land, keeping the fellaheen in obscurity and ignorance and subjecting them to merciless exploitation."
- 2 a former Turkish term of respect; especially for government officials wordnet
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"The real problem of the Arabian population in Palestine is how to get rid of the economic domination and control by approximately 100 families of effendi who now own the land, keeping the fellaheen in obscurity and ignorance and subjecting them to merciless exploitation."
Etymology
Borrowed from Ottoman Turkish افندی (efendi), from Greek αφέντη (afénti), vocative of αφέντης (aféntis), from Ancient Greek αὐθέντης (authéntēs, “lord, master”). Doublet of authentic.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.