afghan
/ˈæfˌɡæn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.83 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A native or inhabitant of Afghanistan; a person of Afghan citizenship or nationality and their descendants.
noun
Synonym of Afghan Hound.
name
Pashto, a language primarily spoken by Pashtun people in Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan.
Example Sentences
- "Four cases of measles – a highly contagious virus – have also been discovered among Afghans who recently arrived in the US, prompting the administration to temporarily pause flights of Afghan refugees to the US."
- "He will be in Afghan for another six months."
- "After the biggest military evacuation in history, the Biden administration will now resettle more than 60,000 Afghan refugees inside the US over the next several weeks."
Etymology
Borrowed from Classical Persian افغان (afġān, “Afghan”), from Bactrian αβαγανο (abagano), first attested in the fourth century CE, most likely a compound of *apāka- (“distant, faraway”), from Proto-Iranian *Hápa, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hápa (“away”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó + *-āna (“ethnic group”), from Proto-Indo-European *-nós, thus: "people from a distant land". Various scholars have proposed Sanskrit etymologies since the nineteenth century (especially prior to the 2007 publication of earlier Bactrian attestations for the word), but linguist Johnny Cheung notes that these are "extremely difficult to reconcile" with recent evidence pointing to a Bactrian source.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: αβαγανο, *Hápa, *h₂epó, *-nós
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈæfˌɡæn/
- British English: /ˈæfˌɡæn/
Usage
- Dated
- New Zealand usage
- British usage
- Slang
- Australian usage