jihadi

Etymology

jihad +‎ -i, after Arabic جِهَادِيّ‎ (jihādiyy). Both the noun and the adjective are in occasional use since the 1960s. The adjective is used attributively only, as in "jihadi activism", "jihadi groups", etc.

Noun

jihadi (plural jihadis)

1. A jihadist, a mujahid

Adjective

jihadi (not comparable)

1. pertaining to jihad or jihadism, jihadist
   • 2014 November 17, Roger Cohen, “The horror! The horror! The trauma of ISIS [print version: International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 9]”, in The New York Times‎:

     What is unbearable, in fact, is the feeling, 13 years after 9/11, that America has been chasing its tail; that, in some whack-a-mole horror show, the quashing of a jihadi enclave here only spurs the sprouting of another there; that the ideology of Al Qaeda is still reverberating through a blocked Arab world whose Sunni-Shia balance (insofar as that went) was upended by the American invasion of Iraq.

References

• OED online (accessed 2011)

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic جِهَاد‎ (jihād).

Noun

jìhādī̀ m (possessed form jìhādìn)

1. (Islam) jihad (holy war)

Noun

jihadi m, f (plural jihadis)

1. (Islam) mujahid; jihadist (a Muslim engaging in jihad)