ishmael

1. 1.

   (Old Testament) the son of Abraham who was cast out after the birth of Isaac; considered the forebear of 12 Arabian tribes

   Broaderpatriarch

   Old Testament

2. 2.

   a person who is rejected (from society or home)

   Synonymsoutcastcastawaypariah

   Broaderunfortunate

   Narrowerhereticleperuntouchable

Other forms of ishmael

plural

ishmaels·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about ishmael

What does ishmael mean?

ishmael means "(Old Testament) the son of Abraham who was cast out after the birth of Isaac; considered the forebear of 12 Arabian tribes". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in ishmael?

ishmael has 2 syllables: ish-mael. The stress falls on "ish". In IPA it is /ˈɪʃmil/.

What is another word for ishmael?

Close synonyms include outcast, castaway, pariah. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is ishmael a common word?

ishmael is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.