Fakir

Definitions

1. A faqir, owning no personal property and usually living solely off alms.
2. An ascetic mendicant, especially one who performs feats of endurance or apparent magic.
   Hinduism
3. Someone who takes advantage of the gullible through fakery, especially of a spiritual or religious nature.
   derogatory

Equivalents

Examples

“The preposterous altruism too![…]Resist⟳ not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.”

“He denounces no one until he has all the damaging facts in hand, very frequently backed up with affidavits. He 'Lawsonized' certain stock⟳ jobbers and financial fakirs of London before the Boston advertising man was heard of.”

“"But a stranger who had come⟳ up to the group just at this point⟳, when they were pronouncing the soup delicious, laughed aloud. "'What a set⟳ of fools you all are!' he cried. 'This tramp is just a fakir. That stone had nothing to do with the soup."”

“He was, as the undercover agent concluded, a fabulous raconteur or, as one other person summed him up, "a monumental fakir and liar."”

“From what I hear⟳ of him he's a fakir, and I won't encourage⟳ him in his attempts to get⟳ into society at my expense.”

CEFR level