Maulvi

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An imam; a Muslim doctor of law.
  2. 2
    Any man of learning; a scholar, a teacher of Classical languages. South-Asia, broadly

    "He had a maulvi and a pandit to teach him Urdu and Hindi."

Example

More examples

"He had a maulvi and a pandit to teach him Urdu and Hindi."

Etymology

From Urdu مولوی (maulvi), and its source, Classical Persian مولوی (mawlawī), noun use of Arabic مَوْلَوِيّ (mawlawiyy, “of a lord or master”), ultimately from مَوْلًى (mawlan, “master”). Compare mullah, maulana.

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