adhan means the call to prayer, usually recited by a muezzin before each of the five obligatory daily prayers. It carries an Arena rating of 1449, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, adhan ranks #2,086 of 17,149 for Most Exacting Words, #2,300 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #2,772 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #5,999 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words.
adhan is pronounced /ɑːˈðɑːn/.
Why “adhan” is a great word
The Islamic call to prayer, recited by a muezzin to announce the times of the five daily obligatory prayers. From the Arabic أَذَان (ʾaḏān), meaning 'announcement', derived from the root ʾadhina, meaning 'to listen, to hear, to be informed'. Unlike the *iqamah* (the brief, urgent second call that signals worshippers to rise for prayer) or *salah* (the silent, embodied ritual of worship itself), the adhan is solely the initial summons that marks the passage of sacred time into the mundane world. It is the muezzin's voice soaring from the minaret at dawn, the clear declaration of divine unity cutting through the market's hubbub at noon, the long shadows of evening measured by this human cry—a sonic architecture that constructs, five times daily, a geography of devotion audible to all within range, proof that even the most solitary listener is summoned into a shared, vertical moment.
Etymology
Borrowed from Arabic أَذَان (ʔaḏān).
noun
- The call to prayer, usually recited by a muezzin before each of the five obligatory daily prayers.e.g.“If one were to pray alone and cannot hear the adhan from a nearby mosque, then giving both the adhan and iqamah is Sunnah (recommended).”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.
- minaret 62% match — The tall slender tower of an Islamic mosque, from which the muezzin recites the adhan (call to prayer). vs adhan →
- iqama 59% match — The second call to prayer, made immediately before Muslims pray. vs adhan →
- asr 59% match — The afternoon Islamic prayer. vs adhan →
- dhuhr 59% match — The midday Islamic prayer. vs adhan →
- muezzin 57% match — The person who issues the call to prayer from one of the minarets of a mosque. vs adhan →
- waaz 55% match — An Islamic sermon vs adhan →
- dawah 55% match — Islamic proselytism, particularly through preaching vs adhan →
- sandhya 53% match — Morning or evening prayers. vs adhan →