1
: a member of a Muslim religious order noted for devotional exercises (such as bodily movements leading to a trance)
2
: one that whirls or dances with or as if with the abandonment of a dervish
Examples of dervish in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
And Adem Bona was a whirling dervish of a double-double, dropping in an and-one layup as the Trojans tried to chip away into a second-half lead, slapping his bicep and waggling his tongue and visibly sucking the life out of Galen.
—
Luca Evans, Orange County Register, 27 Jan. 2024
O'Neal was a natural, inherently understanding that in the world of screwball comedy, there's nothing funnier than a mild-mannered man completely undone by a whirling dervish of a woman.
—Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 8 Dec. 2023
Coltrane’s version, by contrast, is a hypnotic, nearly 14-minute-long whirling dervish of a thing, vamping an E minor into E major again and again and again, chanting and droning, propelled by Tyner’s insistent, percussive left hand on the keys.
—Jeff MacGregor, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Jan. 2024
This melancholy dervish finds in music a sustained ecstasy that eludes him in life, although at certain splendid instants those separate worlds collide.
—Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 17 Dec. 2023
Proof, evidence, testimony In the small city of Gjakova, known for its dervishes of Islam’s mystical Sufi order, sits Kosovo’s most famous private museum: the Qerkezi house, a neat, two-story home adorned with a red-and-black Albanian flag.
—Nina Strochlic, Washington Post, 29 Dec. 2023
When conducting, Bernstein was a whirling dervish of flailing arms and flashing teeth.
—A.d. Amorosi, SPIN, 20 Dec. 2023
End the day with a Sufi whirling dervishes show in the open-air courtyard of the Wekalet El Ghouri Arts Centre.
—Nada El Sawy, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Nov. 2023
Pellucid shots, each a couple of football fields big, whoosh over skyscrapers, elephant herds, and whirling dervishes.
—Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023
Luca Evans, Orange County Register, 27 Jan. 2024
O'Neal was a natural, inherently understanding that in the world of screwball comedy, there's nothing funnier than a mild-mannered man completely undone by a whirling dervish of a woman.
—Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 8 Dec. 2023
Coltrane’s version, by contrast, is a hypnotic, nearly 14-minute-long whirling dervish of a thing, vamping an E minor into E major again and again and again, chanting and droning, propelled by Tyner’s insistent, percussive left hand on the keys.
—Jeff MacGregor, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Jan. 2024
This melancholy dervish finds in music a sustained ecstasy that eludes him in life, although at certain splendid instants those separate worlds collide.
—Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 17 Dec. 2023
Proof, evidence, testimony In the small city of Gjakova, known for its dervishes of Islam’s mystical Sufi order, sits Kosovo’s most famous private museum: the Qerkezi house, a neat, two-story home adorned with a red-and-black Albanian flag.
—Nina Strochlic, Washington Post, 29 Dec. 2023
When conducting, Bernstein was a whirling dervish of flailing arms and flashing teeth.
—A.d. Amorosi, SPIN, 20 Dec. 2023
End the day with a Sufi whirling dervishes show in the open-air courtyard of the Wekalet El Ghouri Arts Centre.
—Nada El Sawy, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Nov. 2023
Pellucid shots, each a couple of football fields big, whoosh over skyscrapers, elephant herds, and whirling dervishes.
—Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dervish.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Dervish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dervish. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
dervish
noun
der·vish
ˈdər-vish 
: a member of a Muslim religious group noted for its customs (as bodily movements leading to a trance)
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