Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Used formerly as a title for the hereditary monarch of Iran.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In the Persian language, the ruler of a land, as either sovereign or vassal. The monarch of Persia (usually called the Shah by English writers) is designated by the compound appellation of padishah.
Wiktionary
- n. A king of Persia.
- n. A supreme ruler in some Middle Eastern or South Asian nations.
- n. historical An Ukrainian monetary unit.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A former title of the supreme ruler in certain Eastern countries, especially Persia and Iran.
WordNet 3.0
- n. title for the former hereditary monarch of Iran
Etymologies
- From Persian شاه (šāh), from Middle Persian 𐭱𐭠𐭤 (šāh), from Old Persian 𐏋 (xšāyaθiya). (Wiktionary)
- Persian shāh, king, from Old Persian khshāyathiya-. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“He was America's "shah"-and that has also been his undoing.”
“It's hard to block out flashbacks of President Jimmy Carter's 1977 New Year's Eve statement that Iran under the shah was an island of stability in a troubled region - only months before that stability was shattered.”
The Washington Post: Could the next Mideast uprising happen in Saudi Arabia?
“So is the revolution generation, those who remember the shah and hate the U.S. for it and with cause, you can say what you want about human rights in Iran today and you'd be right but the shah was a really evil kind of guy.”
“The official national anthem of the shah was the "Imperial Salute of Iran.”
The Huffington Post: Iran Election Live-Blogging (Friday June 19)
“There are allusions to Persia in Shakespeare cited here (the shah was the playwright's contemporary), and most notably there is a pair of small portraits of Robert Sherley and his Circassian wife, Teresia; Sherley, a British adventurer sent to Persia by Elizabeth I, ended up representing the shah on various foreign missions.”
“A ruler with a broad international perspective, the shah was a subject of portraits by Indian Mughal and European artists.”
“We may premise that the shah is the first sovereign who, as such, has become the guest of Switzerland since the meeting of the Council of Constance in the fifteenth century.”
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873
“There was an Indian by the name of Pet-cah-shah, which is their word for”
“The shah, who was overthrown in 1979, was widely hated, and comparing a rival to the shah is a serious, though common, insult in Iranian politics.”
“Comparing a rival to the shah is a serious, though common, insult in Iranian politics.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘shah’.
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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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Realia from Everywhere
Culturally defined terms and expressions from the four corners of the world
fjord, mistral steppe, tornado, tsunami, polder, kiwi, koala, sequoia, Abominable Snowman, paprika, spaghetti, empanada and 299 more...
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Professional Scrabble Lexicon (TWL)
A myriad of game-changing words every Scrabble addict must have in his arsenal.
Keep in mind that these are all tried-and-true feasibly playable words selected for their handiness, i.e...paragon, pignora, ganef, suttee, origan, ohia, aioli, abasement, lehr, mho, tallow, harelike and 843 more...
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Actual and Spectulative Sburb Classes
A list of all known Heroic Classes available to players of the game Sburb within the Homestuck universe, as well as any other words I can think of which would theoretically adhere to the known guid...
heir, seer, knight, witch, maid, page, thief, mage, rogue, sylph, prince, bard and 116 more...
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savage215's Words
pipe, yankee, knickerbocker, tennis, plasma, magma, volcano, car, truck, television, tv, word and 445 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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Portnoy's Complaint
Words gathered while reading Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth.
bonditt, goy, kishkas, goyische, shkotzim, if-onlying, pishachs, schvartze, milchiks, flaishedigeh, galvanic, chazerai and 123 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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hallelujah
words ending in 'ah'
cheetah, hookah, halvah, menorah, messiah, mynah, chutzpah, uriah, oprah, savannah, shah, torah and 14 more...
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Noblesse Oblige
Noble, leadership and ranking titles.
voivod, vavasour, duke, count, earl, herzog, viscount, khan, viceroy, czar, castellan, châtelain and 43 more...
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rulers, leaders & politicians
caliph, samurai, dynastic, captain, queen, potentate, mikado, kaiser, sovereign, majesty, shah, raja and 46 more...
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it's good to be king
or sultana or mogul or...
rulers of the worldruler, regent, regina, king, queen, dowager, empress, emperor, imperator, caesar, pharoh, maharaja and 21 more...
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Royal Pain in the
Royal titles.
king, queen, duke, archduke, duchess, princess, prince, dauphin, emir, emperor, empress, kaiser and 8 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for shah.
trivet *whimper* Jan 28, 2008
seanahan Groan. Jan 28, 2008
asativum Said one scholar to the other: "One man's Mede is another man's Persian."
"Are you shah?" the other replied.
"Sultanly." Jan 28, 2008