Ferenghi

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A white westerner.

    "The appearance of Ferenghi ladies in the Holy City will be an innovation that will fairly eclipse the introduction of the bicycle."

Example

More examples

"The appearance of Ferenghi ladies in the Holy City will be an innovation that will fairly eclipse the introduction of the bicycle."

Etymology

In The Journeyer (2010, page 344), Gary Jennings speculates that this word is derived from Frank—Mongols heard westerners call themselves Franks during the Mongol invasion of Europe, and since then the Mongols called any white westerner a Ferenghi regardless of nationality. "Ferenghi" has also been used in the same manner by Turks, Persians, Afghans, Indians and Arabs. See Arabic إِفْرَنْجِيّ (ʔifranjiyy) and Persian فرنگی (farangi).

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