Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Used formerly as a title for military and civil officers, especially in Turkey and northern Africa.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A title of rank in Turkey, placed after the name. Formerly, an honorary title of a prince of the blood.
Wiktionary
- n. historical A high-ranking Turkish military officer, especially as a commander or regional governor; the highest honorary title during the Ottoman Empire.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An honorary title given to officers of high rank in Turkey, as to governers of provinces, military commanders, etc. The earlier form was
bashaw .
WordNet 3.0
- n. a civil or military authority in Turkey or Egypt
Etymologies
- From Ottoman Turkish پاشا (pāšā) (Turkish paşa); this either from Persian پادشاه (pādšāh, "padishah, king"), or from Turkish baş ("head"), or from Turkish beşe ("boy, prince"), this in turn from Persian بچّه (bačče). (Wiktionary)
- Turkish paşa, from Persian pādshāh; see Padishah. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The pasha was a small, spare, dark little man, with his black beard clipped as close as scissors could do it.”
“The pasha was a brave and energetic man of iron will, a great soldier and an expert architect.”
“As the affair went on with much detail of correspondence between the konak and the consulate for some weeks, it had attracted the general attention of our little public, and the final defeat of the pasha was a mortification to him which he made every effort to conceal.”
“It turns out that the pasha is a beautiful woman, the slave of his mysterious lady-love, and she promises him speedy fulfilment of his wishes.”
“As Mr. Connelly observes, the dispensers of population-control grants often enjoyed a kind of pasha existence.”
“Posted October 4, 2009 at 2: 15 am | Permalink very nice! very modern and clean lines! pasha”
“They imagine themselves as a Turkish pasha, a Saudi Prince or the Amir of Buchara, with dozens of nubile beauties vying for their favors, watching from the balcony the naked wifes bathing in the pool and dropping the handkerchief near the one chosen for the night.”
Polygamy: Facts Not Fear, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Determined to place a friend on the Libyan throne, Eaton led a former Libyan pasha—Hamet, who had been deposed and exiled by his younger brother Karamanli—plus nine Marines and 400 mercenaries on a sun-baked, two-month march of 500 miles from Egypt to Darnah, then Libya's second-largest city.”
The Wall Street Journal: The Star-Spangled Shores of Tripoli
“He can't have his dictatorship of the proletariat while his daughters and wife live as pasha divas.”
“We would come home to find her reclining like a pasha, surrounded by relatives from Bint Jbeil, headscarved old hajjis and tiny old men who sat stiffly in straight-backed chairs pulled up around her as she regaled them with tales of The Operation.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘pasha’.
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POL - people in power
daredevil, tzar, king, boss, master, commander, chief, kingpin, top banana, bigwig, big cheese, big wheel and 452 more...
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The Aubrey/Maturin List I'm Gonna Mak...
I'm wading through Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels one by one, and someday, I'll wade through them again and list all the words I learned while reading them.
Edit: I started ma...studdingsail, carronade, mumchance, grumlin-futtocks, crosscat-harpings, holystone, sennit, orlop, orchitis, negus, kevel, altumal and 1112 more...
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cross words
the good ole boys of the nyt crossword puzzle
oleo, oreo, stlo, amie, ares, eros, erato, sloe, ogee, apse, enola, ecru and 94 more...
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colleen's words
yellow, green, pie, blue, fur, people, incense, book, brown, avuncular, mountain, fog and 1316 more...
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aliko's Words
deli, turkey, bodrum, deniz, sunny, seks, tatil, hava, zeeman, captain, kapitein, kaptan and 256 more...
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edes's Words
table talk, tuneful, bestrewn, determinate fashion, unpretending, personage, duly impressed, shirring, caw, hatchet job, gummy, comely and 225 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 889 more...
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Take Me To Your Whosit
About leaders, particularly the authority-figure at the top of the tree.
leader, chief, boss, cap'n, executive, president, head, tsar, alpha male, alpha female, conductor, dean and 127 more...
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librarygoblin's words
crystal, ghost, mist, snow, labyrinth, citadel, tomb, mystery, arcane, conundrum, echo, dynamo and 389 more...
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Words of the Day
glabella, chirotony, nook-shotten, crapehanger, filemot, swirlie, egosurf, lexiphanicism, Ruritanian, stichometry, chrononaut, faldstool and 2256 more...
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miscellany
preposterous, minimalism, outnumbered, subroutine, malinger, oddity, eccentricity, laughable, oxymoronic, interstellar, winter, heedless and 335 more...
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Venus In Furs
disinter, subjugate, sober down, domineering, wantonly, coquettish, cossack, maxim, pasha, anvil, hoarfrost, carpathian and 51 more...
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Who's in charge here?
honcho, chieftain, viceroy, tsar, sultan, sovereign, shogun, sheikh, shah, regent, ranee, rajah and 15 more...
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Honorifics
emperor, empress, king, queen, monarch, prince, princess, admiral, general, herald, warden, patriarch and 68 more...
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best words
nocturne, phocine, faille, eidolon, swale, atelier, empyrean, eponym, linden, adroit, celadon, pasha and 22 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for pasha.
chained_bear "...first Allen and then Graham explained that in the outlying provinces of the Turkish empire the valis, pashas, agas and beys, though in principle subject to the Sultan, often behaved like independent rulers, increasing their territories by usurpation or by making open war upon one another..."
--Patrick O'Brian, The Ionian Mission, 260-261 Feb 14, 2008