mosque

American  

[mosk, mawsk] / mɒsk, mɔsk /

noun

1. a Muslim temple or place of public worship.

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mosque British  

/ mɒsk /

noun

1. Also called: masjid.   musjid.  a Muslim place of worship, usually having one or more minarets and often decorated with elaborate tracery and texts from the Koran

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mosque Cultural  

1. A Muslim house of worship with at least one minaret, a tall, slender tower with balconies, used for calling the faithful to prayer.

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Etymology

Origin of mosque

1600–10; earlier mosquee < Middle French < Italian moschea ≪ Arabic masjid, derivative of sajada to worship, literally, prostrate oneself; the -ee seems to have been taken as diminutive suffix and dropped

Compare meaning

How does mosque compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• masjid vs. mosque

Example Sentences

But inside the ruins of a mosque, a restoration crew is hard at work rebuilding this piece of Suakin, over a century after the city was abandoned.

From Barron's

"I could talk to you for three hours about the family lineages, the mosques' minarets and why the mud-brick walls never collapse in the rain," he told AFP.

From Barron's

I recognize the Armenian and Greek kids who go to church with their families, the Muslim Turkish kids who go to the mosque with their families.

From Literature

Bazaaris provided financial support to the opposition and drew on their countrywide networks to help organize the unrest, lending decisive help to the uprising that included Iran’s mosque network, trade unions and many ordinary people.

From The Wall Street Journal

He’d build a dam in your region or give you money for a mosque or whatever.

From Salon

Related Words

• chapel
• church
• holy place
• house of worship
• place of worship
• sanctuary
• shrine
• synagogue