Almah definition

From colloquial Arabic (‘ālima) ‘singer’, originally a feminine adjective meaning ‘learned, knowledgeable’, from (‘alima) ‘to know’.

an Egyptian singer or dancing-girl used for entertainment or as a professional mourner
- 1998: Nostalgia is almah, the Arab dancing girl. She tells me stories of the drowned, the deadest of this world's dead. — Hélène Cixous, Firstdays of the Year, tr. Catherine Gillivray (Minnesota 1998, p. 157)