hegira means A journey taken to escape from danger; an exodus. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 83 out of 100.
hegira is pronounced /ˈhɛd͡ʒɪɹə/.
Why “hegira” is a great word
A purposeful journey of escape or migration, most famously the flight of the prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. From Medieval Latin hegira, from Arabic هِجْرَة (hijra, "exodus, emigration, departure"). First attested in English in the 1580s. Unlike an "exodus" (which implies a vast, collective flight) or an "odyssey" (which suggests a long, wandering ordeal), a hegira is a deliberate, often singular, act of departure toward refuge. It is the hushed packing of essentials by candlelight, the last glance at a receding homeland from the deck of a ship, and the weary, purposeful footsteps across a desert at dusk—a choice to trade a known peril for an uncertain sanctuary, the very moment a life is cleaved in two.
Etymology
From Arabic هِجْرَة (hijra, “exodus; emigration”). Doublet of hijra.
noun
- A journey taken to escape from danger; an exodus.“By all odds the most remarkable westward migration before the California gold rush of 1849 was the Mormon hegira to the Great Salt Lake basin.”
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