Ishmaelite

American  

[ish-mee-uh-lahyt, -mey-uh-, -muh-] / ˈɪʃ mi əˌlaɪt, -meɪ ə-, -mə- /

noun

1. a descendant of Ishmael, the traditional ancestor of the Arab peoples.

2. a wanderer or outcast.

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Ishmaelite British  

/ ˈɪʃmeɪəˌlaɪt /

noun

1. a supposed descendant of Ishmael; a member of a desert people of Old Testament times

2. rare an outcast

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• Ishmaelitish
  adjective
• Ishmaelitism
  noun

Etymology

Origin of Ishmaelite

First recorded in 1570–80; Ishmael + -ite ¹

Example Sentences

Registered as the Rosebud, this innocent name was painted on her stern and on her sixteen dories; but she was known among the fishing-fleet as the Ishmaelite, and the name fitted her.

From "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea by Robertson, Morgan

There was less of the Ishmaelite about Whitman than about Thoreau, Borrow, or Jefferies; but the man whose company he really delighted in was the “powerful, uneducated man”—the artisan and the mechanic. 

From The Vagabond in Literature by Rickett, Arthur

Ibsen's analysis of disease, his examination of marriage problems, his Ishmaelite attacks on the present structure of civilised society—all this has had its effect on his contemporary and countryman.

From Essays on Modern Novelists by Phelps, William Lyon

That he himself would not demur to this estimate may be inferred from the fact that he was wont to describe himself, in his younger days, as a 'political Ishmaelite.'

From The Day of Sir John Macdonald A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion by Pope, Joseph, Sir

He was a boy; a raw-boned green boy, smarting under a sense of injustice, a regular, thorough-paced young Ishmaelite as you ever saw.

From Roger Ingleton, Minor by Reed, Talbot Baines