often capitalized
1
: the prayer leader of a mosque
2
: a Muslim leader of the line of Ali held by Shiites to be the divinely appointed, sinless, infallible successors of Muhammad
3
: any of various rulers that claim descent from Muhammad and exercise spiritual and temporal leadership over a Muslim region

Examples of imam in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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Trump won endorsements from Muslim imams and the Muslim mayor of Hamtramck, another town near Detroit with a large Arab American population, as well as the large Bangladeshi community, and courted Iraqi Americans, Albanian Americans and others. Andrea Shalal and Maya Gebeily, USA TODAY, 1 Dec. 2024 The outreach has had some success with a group of imams, including Husham Al-Husainy, an Iraqi sheik who leads the Karbaala Education Center in Dearborn. Yash Roy, The Hill, 3 Nov. 2024 Tayyeb had fallen out with the Holy See during the tenure of Francis’s predecessor, Benedict, when the imam claimed that the former pope’s comments in 2011 about terrorist violence minimized the suffering of Muslims. Victor Gaetan, Foreign Affairs, 12 Mar. 2021 The imam spoke at Walz’s 2019 inauguration, among other events. Gabe Kaminsky, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 8 Oct. 2024 See all Example Sentences for imam 

Word History

Etymology

Arabic imām

First Known Use

1613, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of imam was in 1613

Dictionary Entries Near imam

Cite this Entry

“Imam.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/imam. Accessed 18 Dec. 2024.

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