shalwar
/ˈʃʌlwɑɹ/noun
shalwar is a noun meaning “Loose trousers worn in some South Asian or Islamic countries, especially by women but also by men, especially with a kamees” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-H-A-L-W-A-R, and it appears about once in every 14 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of shalwar is shalwars.
What does shalwar mean?
noun
- 1
Loose trousers worn in some South Asian or Islamic countries, especially by women but also by men, especially with a kamees.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce shalwar?
- /ˈʃʌlwɑɹ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-shalwar.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of shalwar
- shalwars plural
- salwar
- salvar
- shalvar
- shulwar
- shulwaur
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is shalwar?
Shalwar appears about once in every 14 million words in written English, the 113,022nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Shalwar in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense garment:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does shalwar come from?
Borrowed from Hindi शलवार (śalvār)/सलवार (salvār) or Urdu شَلْوار (śalvār)/سَلْوار (salvār), from Classical Persian شَلْوَار (šalwār).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).