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harem

[hair-uhm, har-]

noun

the part of a Muslim palace or house reserved for the residence of women.

the women in a Muslim household, including the mother, sisters, wives, concubines, daughters, entertainers, and servants.

Animal Behavior. a social group of females, as elephant seals, accompanied or followed by one fertile male who denies other males access to the group.

Facetious or Offensive. a group of women associated in any way with one man or household: Father joked that he had a harem of five daughters.

Also, haram, hareem, harim.

Origin:
1625–35; < Arabic harīm harem, literally, forbidden

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Harem is always a great word to know.

So is interrobang. Does it mean:

a fool or simpleton; ninny.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

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Example Sentences

Perhaps on no subject does greater misconception prevail than on this of harem slavery.

Best was the first sports-media star with his harem and fashion lines.

But as one of the oldest and biggest males in the group, he's about ready to go solo and establish a harem of his own.

EXPAND

Perhaps on no subject does greater misconception prevail than on this of harem slavery.

Best was the first sports-media star with his harem and fashion lines.

But as one of the oldest and biggest males in the group, he's about ready to go solo and establish a harem of his own.

Also, this means the dominant male has to keep all other males from mating with his female partner or harem.

The winner hurries back onto the beach, to his spot amidst the dozens of female seals in his harem.

His innovations included the chemise, harem pants and pantaloons and the popular lampshade skirt.

Outside looking in, a lone male elephant seal lurks at the edge of a harem.

Menstrual synchrony limits harem fertility, discouraging the keeping of harems.

Tourists, almost invariably wearing colorful harem pants, brush shoulders with locals.

Robinson's daughter, and gypsy knitwear and such with pareo or harem pants.

Males either live in an all-male group of bachelors, or as the one male leader of a small harem of females and young.

Kiani barks to stake his territoryâ¬¦this is how males in the wild protect their harem on wide beaches.

Like its imprisoned ladies, the film is torpid as if it also had been too long in the close air of the harem.

When a female tries to take over a harem of males, she may attempt to puncture a rival's eye or break her leg.

Oils were used by the king, the queen, and the members of the harem.

We saw a beautiful kudu buck with a whole harem of females.

In the fall, the woods fill with the noise of bugling bull elks attracting a harem.

The bull is huge, his horns no ornament, his harem his alone because he's gored the only slightly less impressive opposition.

They live in organized harem groups consisting of a dominant male and two to seven females and their offspring.

The harem image, while indirect, is also in keeping with the idea of an enclosed space.

Polygamy will be a tool for rich alpha males to build a harem of women.

Females within a harem have no such incentive and evidently measure out their favors on a basis of reciprocity.

She put a self-fringed cashmere tunic with georgette harem pants and adorned belted woolen coats with paisley embroidery.

Each spring a male delineates and defends his territory and his harem from aggressive rivals.

The hamadryas baboon is a harem holder where one male mates with multiple females.

Apparently he plans to go through the harem this way.

Andrade's harem have contended that the singer was utterly dominated by him and that she.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

harem or hareem (ˈhɛərəm, hɑːˈriːm)

—n
1.	the part of an Oriental house reserved strictly for wives, concubines, etc
2.	a Muslim's wives and concubines collectively
3.	a group of female animals of the same species that are the mates of a single male

[C17: from Arabic harīm forbidden (place)]

hareem or hareem

—n

[C17: from Arabic harīm forbidden (place)]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

harem

1634, from Turk. harem, from Arabic haram "wives and concubines," originally "women's quarters," lit. "something forbidden or kept safe," from root of harama "he guarded, forbade."

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