zawiya
/ˈzɑːwijə/noun
zawiya is a noun meaning “In North and West Africa, a Muslim religious school or community, or its mosque” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled Z-A-W-I-Y-A, and it appears about once in every 16 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of zawiya is zawiyas.
What does zawiya mean?
noun
- 1
In North and West Africa, a Muslim religious school or community, or its mosque.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce zawiya?
- UK /ˈzɑːwɪə/
- US /ˈzɑːwijə/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of zawiya
- zawiyas plural
- zaouia
- zawiyah
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is zawiya?
Zawiya appears about once in every 16 million words in written English, the 119,826th 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).
Zawiya in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Muslim religious school or community:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | zaouia |
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 zawiya come from?
From Arabic زَاوِيَة (zāwiya, “corner, prayer room”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).