Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A Pashtun.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A person of Afghan race settled in Hindustan, or one of kindred race in eastern Afghanistan.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • proper noun A native or inhabitant of Afghanistan, especially of the Pashtun tribes of southern Afghanistan.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun In India and Pakistan, a Pashtun; a member of the Pashto-speaking people of north-west Pakistan and south-east Afghanistan.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an ethnic minority speaking Pashto and living in northwestern Pakistan and southeastern Afghanistan
  • noun a member of the mountain people living in the eastern regions of Afghanistan

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Hindi Paṭhān, from Pashto Pəštana, pl. of Pəštūn, an Afghan, from pašto, Pashto; see Pashto.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Punjabi, from plural of Pashto پشتون.

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Examples

  • The life of the Pathan is thus full of interest; and his valleys, nourished alike by endless sunshine and abundant water, are fertile enough to yield with little labour the modest material requirements of a sparse population.

    October 31, 2004 Laban 2004

  • The life of the Pathan is thus full of interest; and his valleys, nourished alike by endless sunshine and abundant water, are fertile enough to yield with little labour the modest material requirements of a sparse population.

    Archive 2004-10-31 Laban 2004

  • Sure, Shane Warne was guilty of hyperbole and revisionism when he called Pathan's 37-ball century the best he'd ever seen, but it was still a thrilling display of power and timing.

    Blogposts | guardian.co.uk Dileep Premachandran 2010

  • Pashtun (aka Pathan) frontier tribes - collectively mislabeled "Taliban" by western media - are up in arms again because they are being bombed by US Predator drones, and attacked by the Pakistani Army, which the US rents for $1.5 billion annually (the official figure; actually, it's a lot more), to support its widening war in Afghanistan.

    Eric Margolis: Return of the "Mad Mullah" 2009

  • Pashtun, also called Pathan by outsiders, are the world's largest tribal people.

    Eric Margolis: Kicking a Hornet's Nest in Pakistan 2009

  • As a soldier the Pathan is a finer shot, a hardier man, a better marcher, especially on the hillside, and possibly an even more brilliant fighter.

    The Story of the Malakand Field Force An Episode of Frontier War Winston S. Churchill 1919

  • Sikander Khan swore to me; and he comes of a horse-stealing clan for ten generations; he swore a Pathan was a babe beside a _Durro Mut_ in regard to horse-lifting.

    Traffics and Discoveries Rudyard Kipling 1900

  • Mahbub's hand shot into his bosom, for to call a Pathan a 'black man'

    Kim Rudyard Kipling 1900

  • Pashtun (aka Pathan) frontier tribes - collectively mislabeled ` Taliban 'by western media - are up in arms again because they are being bombed by US Predator drones, and attacked by the Pakistani Army, which the US rents for $1.5 billion annually (the official figure; actually, it's a lot more), to support its widening war in Afghanistan.

    The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com 2009

  • Additional referential clarifications and general usage guidelines in this regard include: the term Pathan will not be used unless it is contained in quotation from original documents; Pashto speakers will be identified as Pashtuns; Afghan will designate a strong territorial and weak national referent (it also will be used in the Afghan society construct); the Afghan state will refer to the Durrani dynasts who ruled (Durrani is a major confederation of Pashtun tribes within which the Saddozai, Barakzai, Muhammadzai lineages produced the rulers) their non-Durrani confidantes, and the urban and urbanized "Kabuli" bureaucrats operating the state machinery; Durrani state and Afghan state will be used interchangeably; Durrani and Ghalzi Pashtun will be distinguished as functionally separate ethnicities based on their differential relationships to the Pashto language and the Afghan state.

    Connecting Histories in Afghanistan: Market Relations and State Formation on a Colonial Frontier 2008

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