Marime
romani concept about impurity
Marime, mahrime, or marimé is a central concept in traditional Romani culture, particularly within Vlax and Northern Roma groups, that refers to a notion of ritual impurity. The opposite of marime is užo, a term referring to ritual cleanliness. The interpretation of the laws of marime vary in different Romani communities and individual Romani people vary in how strictly they follow the laws. Some Romani people do not follow the laws of marime at all.
Terminology
The term marime is derived from the Greek language. In England and Wales, the concept is referred to as mochadi or moxado and in Poland as magerdó. Moxado and magerdó both mean "besmirched" and are derived from "mraks", a Sanskrit term meaning "smeared". Sinti people refer to the concept with the terms "palećido" (neglected or isolated) and "prast(l)o" (inflamed or outlawed).
About
While each adult is capable of causing ritual pollution, adult women of child-bearing age have traditionally been assumed to possess a particular power to cause ritual pollution. The notions of marime and žužo refer to particular regions of the body and physical proximity to those regions.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Marime” is romani concept about impurity. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Marime, romani and concept, not as a finished interpretation.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q117190801.
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This entry incorporates text from “Marime” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.