sultan

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French sultan (“ruler of Turkey”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} or sultānus,^{[7][8][9][10][11]} from Arabic سُلْطَان (sulṭān, “power, dominion; ruler, sovereign”).^{[7][4][3][12][13]} The American Heritage Dictionary, Dictionary.com and Wiktionary place Ottoman Turkish سلطان (sultan) between the French and Arabic words.^[5][6][1] Klein, Ayto and Barnhart trace the Arabic noun to an Aramaic word for "power", from a verb meaning "to have power";^{[12][10][3][5]} Klein adds that the Aramaic word was sometimes used in the sense "possessor of power".^[12] The title spread to other European languages, as sultano, sultán and sultão.^[7][14] English had taken it earlier as soldan (about 1300), through Old French soudan and souldan, forms used loosely of any Muslim ruler.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The sovereign of a Muslim country: 1555, in R. Eden's translation of Peter Martyr's Decades.^[7][3][4] Etymonline and Dictionary.com give the 1550s or 1545–55.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In early use the word was applied especially to the ruler of the Ottoman Empire,^[7][2] and Johnson (1755) defined it simply as "the Turkish emperour".^[15] It could also be used of a prince or high officer.^[7][8] From 1662 it meant any absolute ruler or tyrant,^[7][13] and in the 19th century a sultan was a type of magnificence (1864) and, with allusion to the harem, a man with many women (1872).^[7] Because they came from the East, other things were named after the title: the sweet-scented flower called sultan or sweet sultan (1629),^[7][13] a small white-crested breed of fowl first brought from Turkey (1855),^[7][4][11] and the sultan hen (1882).^[7] The feminine sultana, from Italian, was a sultan's wife from the 16th century, and a small raisin from the early 19th.^[10][13] R. F. Burton used sultan as a verb, to play the despot, in his Arabian Nights (1886).^[7]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – the earlier form soldan, soudan.^[2]
• 1555 – the sovereign of a Muslim country.^[7][3][4]
• 1629 – the sweet sultan, a scented flower.^[7]
• 1662 – an absolute ruler; a tyrant.^[7]
• 1855 – a breed of white-crested domestic fowl.^[7]
• 1864 – a type of magnificence.^[7]
• 1886 – verb, to rule as a despot.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. The sovereign or ruler of a Muslim state: the Sultan of Brunei.^[4][11][7]
2. (historical) The ruler of the Ottoman Empire.^[7][11][8]
3. An absolute ruler; a despot or tyrant.^[11][7][8]
4. A small breed of domestic fowl with a white crest and feathered legs, first bred in Turkey.^[11][4][7]
5. The sweet sultan, a scented garden plant.^[7][13]

Word family

• sultanic
• sultanlike
• sultanship
• sultanate
• sultaness

Related words

• sultana
• soldan

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.