Houri
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A beautiful virgin girl supposed to dwell in Paradise for the enjoyment of the faithful.
"They went through the courtyard, past a naked copper houri tilting a water-jar that merely dripped[.]"
- 2 (Islam) one of the dark-eyed virgins of perfect beauty believed to live with the blessed in Paradise wordnet
- 3 Any voluptuous, beautiful woman. broadly
"I would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk’s whole seraglio; gazelle-eyes, houri forms and all!"
- 4 a voluptuously beautiful young woman wordnet
Example
More examples"They went through the courtyard, past a naked copper houri tilting a water-jar that merely dripped[.]"
Etymology
From French houri, from Persian حوری (hurî), from Arabic حُورِيّ (ḥūriyy) and Arabic حُورِيَّة (ḥūriyya), adjective and feminine singulative of حُور (ḥūr) from Classical Arabic حُورٌ عِينٌ (ḥūrun ʕīnun, “fair maidens, black-eyed ones”). See أَحْوَر m (ʔaḥwar), حَوْرَاء f (ḥawrāʔ) for the base adjective.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.