From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdervishder‧vish /ˈdɜːvɪʃ $ ˈdɜːr-/ noun [countable] RRIRRIa member of a Muslim religious group, some of whom dance fast and spin around as part of a religious ceremony
Examples from the Corpus
dervish• I have told you I am half a dervish.• Auguste was a dervish in the centre of a whirlpool.• We Israelites, the wandering heirs Of a bewildered dervish, are taught distrust in prayer.• Trepolov had some sense of decency and didn't go attacking the ball like some damned dervish.• Some of them were whirling round like dervishes.• The dervish gyrating on his axis echoes the rotation of the earth and taps the sources of creative vibration.• The whirling dervishes, though often the face of Sufism in the West, represent only one school.Origin dervish (1500-1600) Turkish dervis “poor person, beggar” 