Etymology

mutawa

M3U1T1A1W4A1

Today it means: A member of the religious police in Saudi Arabia. Full definition →

Arabic مُطَوَّع
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Arabic · derived fromمُطَوَّع“compliance officer, pious volunteer”
  2. English todaymutawa

From the Arabic مُطَوَّع (muṭawwaʕ, “compliance officer, pious volunteer”), from طَوَّعَ (ṭawwaʕa, “to subjugate”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.