from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. A ruler of a Muslim country, especially of the former Ottoman Empire.
- n. A powerful person: a sultan of vice and corruption.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. Originally, a secular office, formally subordinate to -, but de facto the power behind the throne of the (theoretically universal) caliph.
- n. A hereditary ruler in various Muslim states (sultanate), varying from petty principalities (as in Indonesia and in Yemen), often vassal of a greater ruler, to independent realms, such as Oman, Brunei, or an empire such as the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
- n. A variant of solitaire, played with two decks of cards.
- n. A breed of chicken originating in Turkey, kept primarily in gardens for ornamental reasons. See: sultan (chicken)
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A ruler, or sovereign, of a Mohammedan state; specifically, the ruler of the Turks; the Padishah, or Grand Seignior; -- officially so called.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A Mohammedan sovereign: as, the Sultan of Zanzibar or of Morocco; by way of eminence, the ruler of Turkey, who assumes the title of Sultan of sultans; in old use, any ruler.
- n. In ornithology, a purple or hyacinthine gallinule, or porphyrio; a bird of either of the genera Porphyrio and Ionornis, belonging to the rail family, Rallidæ: so called from their gorgeous coloration. The American sultan is Ionornis martinica. See the generic names, and gallinule. Also called sultana.
- n. An ornamental variety of the domestic hen, of small size and pure-white plumage, and having the head heavily crested and bearded, beak white, legs blue, shanks feathered, and toes five.
- n. Either of two garden-flowers, Centaurea moschata, the sweet sultan, with purple or white flowers, and C. suaveolens, the yellow sultan: both often classed as Amberboa.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. the ruler of a Muslim country (especially of the former Ottoman Empire)
Reagan had pretty seriously deteriorated by this point, and the grand vizier has a lot of power when the sultan is senile.
Prince Amir, with a hundred other sons of the sultan, is kept prisoner in a palace where intrigue, murder, and poison are the least of their troubles -- a cursed spirit hunts the princes down, killing one after another.
58 The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamalukes: 59 a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion; by the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas and the successors of the Arabian prophet.
[Illustration: HIPPOPOTAMUS] "It was in the Buffalo Swamp," continued he, "that I saw the splendid birds you call sultan cocks, and I set my heart on catching one alive, which, as they seemed to have little fear of my approach, I managed by means of a wire snare.
So who better to ask than Lash Fary, the so-called sultan of swag, joining me in New York.
Joinville at 400,000 French livres of his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by 100,000 marks of silver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx. sur Joinville.)] 99 The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their sultan is seriously attested by Joinville,
They loved mall, and to play before the sultan was a special honor.
French; but the sultan is the source of all law, civil and military; he is the summit, while the municipal institutions are the base, of the political fabric.
The sultan is the virtual editor, and consequently the papers are popular, as containing opinions on state policy _ex cathedra_.
The sultan is a well-informed and courtly gentleman, with a polish of mind and manners we were quite unprepared to find hidden away in the heart of Java.