Giaour

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈd͡ʒaʊə/

Definitions

1. A word historically employed to signify a non-Muslim individual within a cultural framework
2. this label refers to someone viewed as an infidel or outsider in certain narratives
3. A term used to identify an individual who does not follow Islam ; someone regarded as outside or opposed to a particular religious group

Etymology: "Giaour" entered English through French, but its path runs from Persian through the Ottoman Turkish of the Ottoman Empire. Its Persian ancestor, "gāwur," was a variant of "gabr," a term applied to Zoroastrians and used by Muslims to mean an infidel, a non-believer. Over centuries of use in Muslim-majority lands, the word became a label for non-Muslims, especially Christians, and European travellers then carried it west, where French adopted it as "giaour" before English took it from there. The word's sibling forms show the same history from different angles. "Gheber" and "gueber" are doublets of it, meaning they come from the same source by separate routes, and both were used in English for Zoroastrians in Persia and India. The shared root means that a single insult, passed from one language to another, split into several English words, each carrying a different community's name.

Synonyms: infidel