Emily Dickinson Lexicon

FA'KIR, or FA-QUIR, n. [This word signifies in Arabic a poor man; in Ethiopic, an interpreter.]

A monk in India. The fakirs subject themselves to severe austerities and mortification. Some of them condemn themselves to a standing posture all their lives, supported only by a stick or rope under their arm-pits. Some mangle their bodies with scourges or knives. Others wander about in companies, telling fortunes, and these are said to be arrant villains. Encyc.