specifically: a senior member of a religious order —used as a title
2
: one that resembles or emulates a swami : pundit, seer
Examples of swami in a Sentence
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Play the damn game without worrying about all that swami stuff.—Nick Canepa, San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 June 2026 Several sequels followed, including one called Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, in which Karloff plays a hypnotist swami from the Orient.—Jordan Hoffman, Vulture, 4 Mar. 2024 In the mid-’80s, when the community had swollen to more than 600 residents, New Vrindaban’s swami, a thin-lipped former Baptist, was accused of ordering the assassination of two disgruntled devotees.—Ashley Stimpson, Longreads, 19 Feb. 2022 The swami named her Ganga, for the Ganges River.—BostonGlobe.com, 5 June 2021 Yogananda was the first Indian swami to make America his home.—Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times, 19 Nov. 2020 Also born into an upper-caste family, Mr. Manav says he was compelled to drop his last name – a signifier of one’s caste – after hearing the swami speak.—Soumya Shankar, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 May 2020 The statue of Hanuman Murti (inset above), god of courage, was a gift from a swami in the motherland to consecrate Sri Dattatreya Yoga Centre in 2003.—Omar Mouallem, WSJ, 17 Jan. 2020 Perhaps realising how bad things had become, my grandfather agreed to take a vow of celibacy in the presence of a swami.—Vikram Zutshi, Quartz India, 19 July 2019
Word History
Etymology
Hindi svāmī, from Sanskrit svāmin owner, lord, from sva one's own — more at suicide