Brewer's: Houri

(pl. Houris). The large blackeyed damsels of Paradise, possessed of perpetual youth and beauty, whose virginity is renewable at pleasure. Every believer will have seventy-two of these houris in Paradise, and his intercourse with them will be fruitful or otherwise, according to his wish. If an offspring is desired, it will grow to full estate in an hour. (Persian, huri; Arabic, huriya, nymphs of paradise. Compare ahivar, black-eyed.) (The Koran.)

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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