Sunni
Americannoun
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Also called Sunnite. a member of one of the two great religious divisions of Islam, regarding the first four caliphs as legitimate successors of Muhammad and stressing the importance of Sunna as a basis for law.
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(used with a plural verb) the Sunni Muslims.
noun
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one of the two main branches of orthodox Islam (the other being the Shiah), consisting of those who acknowledge the authority of the Sunna
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another term for Sunnite
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of Sunni
1620–30; < Arabic sunnī, derivative of sunnah Sunna
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Mr. Rogers has been courting Lebanese Christian and Iraqi Catholic Chaldean voters, and even Sunni and Shiite Muslims: “I have friends in the Muslim community who are eager to be a counterweight.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Turkey has championed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former Sunni jihadist whose rebels in late 2024 ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, ending a brutal civil war.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
Instead, Damascus belongs to Ahmed al-Sharaa, a Sunni leader and former commander of al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, who had fought Hezbollah for years.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 16, 2026
The "Mecca Joint Defence Agreement" pledges mutual support between the three Sunni states, but provides no specifics on the obligations of each.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
We visited Baghdad, the U.S. military headquarters in Fallujah, and the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit encampment outside Babil, in the heart of Iraq’s so-called Sunni Triangle.
From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
