Definitions

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

  • A vast empire of southwest Asia founded by Cyrus II after 546 BC and brought to the height of its power and glory by Darius I and his son Xerxes. Eventually the empire extended from the Indus River valley in present-day Pakistan to the Mediterranean Sea before Alexander the Great conquered it between 333 and 331 BC.

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

  • proper noun academic usage a region in southwestern Iran, in particular Pars/Fars province
  • proper noun archaic, classical usage Territories corresponding to either of the two empires ruled by dynasts from Pars/Fars, specially the first of the two

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

  • noun an empire in southern Asia created by Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BC and destroyed by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC
  • noun a theocratic Islamic republic in the Middle East in western Asia; Iran was the core of the ancient empire that was known as Persia until 1935; rich in oil

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin Persia, from Ancient Greek Περσίς (Persis) (Iran), from Old Persian 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 (Pārsa).

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Examples

  • Choisy, following Dieulafoy, would derive the Byzantine system of construction from Persia, but this proposition seems to depend on a mistaken chronology of the monuments as shown by Perrot and Chipiez in their _History of Art in Persia_.

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" Various

  • PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, an epic action-adventure set in the mystical lands of Persia ... ...

    Musicrooms.net 2010

  • PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, an epic action-adventure set in the mystical lands of Persia ... ...

    Musicrooms.net 2010

  • PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, an epic action-adventure set in the mystical lands of Persia ... ...

    Musicrooms.net 2010

  • PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, an epic action-adventure set in the mystical lands of Persia ... ...

    Musicrooms.net 2010

  • PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, an epic action-adventure set in the mystical lands of Persia ... ...

    Musicrooms.net 2010

  • PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, an epic action-adventure set in the mystical lands of Persia ... ...

    Musicrooms.net 2010

  • PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME, an epic action-adventure set in the mystical lands of Persia ... ...

    Musicrooms.net 2010

  • In concession, my interest in Persia is life-long and it gives me intense pleasure to see that Persia is steadily moving up in the scale of civilization.

    Explorers and the British Empire 1934

  • He was compelled to retract that dictum by the power of the British and the Russian Ministers, but the position of the reactionaries in Persia is the one which represents the fundamental Mohammedan law.

    The Present Crisis in Turkey 1908

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