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Definition of ayatollah
: a religious leader among Shiite Muslims —used as a title of respect especially for one who is not an imam
From the M-W Editors
Recent Examples of ayatollah from the Web
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New Jersey’s Corey Booker, Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, and other Democrats remained uncommitted, threatening Obama’s $150 billion bailout of the atomic ayatollahs.
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Helping the Baghdad government is equivalent, sad to say, to helping the ayatollahs in Iran.
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But if the Saudi regime, through personal ambition or family ambition, ends up destabilizing, everybody in the gulf on the Arab side could be trouble, and the opportunity for both Sunni extremists and the ayatollahs in Tehran could be formidable.
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The ayatollah's wife is buried in the complex as well, along with several notable political figures.
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But Rafsanjani, himself an ayatollah, clashed with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, over the extent to which Iran should modify its bellicose stance toward outsiders.
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TEHRAN — Iran’s supreme leader backed the country’s missile program on Wednesday, criticizing a prominent ayatollah who had suggested that in the future, negotiations were far more important.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'ayatollah.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Origin and Etymology of ayatollah
Persian āyatollāh, literally, sign of God, from Arabic āyatallāh, from āya sign, miracle + allāh God
Other Religion (Eastern and Other) Terms
Zen, antinomian, avatar, gnosticism, illuminati, ineffable, karma, koan, mantra
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