marabout

/ˈmaɹəbuːt/

Etymology

From French marabout, from Portuguese maraboto, marabuto, from Moroccan Arabic مْرَابِط (mrabeṭ) (standard Arabic مُرَابِط (murābiṭ, “soldier stationed in fortified outpost”)).

marabout means A Muslim holy man or mystic, especially in parts of North Africa. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 80 out of 100.

Why this word is great

MARABOUT — [Noun] A Muslim holy man or mystic, especially in North Africa, or the tomb or shrine of such a person. From French marabout, from Portuguese marabuto, from Moroccan Arabic مْرَابِط (mrabeṭ), from standard Arabic مُرَابِط (murābiṭ, "soldier stationed in a fortified outpost"), from the verb رَبَطَ (rabaṭa, "to tie, bind, or be stationed"). Unlike an imam, whose authority is liturgical and communal, or a dervish, whose piety is ecstatic and itinerant, the marabout is a spiritual anchor—a living saint bound to a place, or the sacred stone that remains. He is the whitewashed dome visible for miles in the flat light, the frayed cloth petitions tied to the lattice of his shrine, the specific, dusty silence that is not absence but a held breath. We build our shrines where the world feels thin, to tie the unseen to a point on the map we can touch.

noun

A Muslim holy man or mystic, especially in parts of North Africa.“one of their principal targets was the marabouts – or holy men and leaders of mystic orders – whom they accused both of corrupting the faith by their espousal of mysticism and of being the ‘domestic animals of colonialism’.”
The tomb or shrine of such a person.“Climbing one on his second day lost, Prosperi spotted a disturbance to the view. “I was convinced it was somebody’s home or a holy man’s shrine.” But the shrine, or marabout, was empty. The only holy man was in a sarcophagus.”