A variant spelling of alma; a skilled female dancer or entertainer in Arab cultures.
Direct borrowing from Arabic 'alme,' the feminine form of 'alim' (learned). This is an alternative romanization of the same word as 'alma.'
Different spellings of the same word show how European scholars in the 1700s-1800s were figuring out how to write Arabic sounds using English letters—there was no standard system yet!
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