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Word of the Day – Wednesday, July 6th

 


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AGHA (AH-guh)

Used as a title for a civil or military leader, especially in Turkey
Common clues: Eastern potentate;
Turkish title; Turkish bigwig; Ottoman pooh-bah; Muslim honorific; Turkish general
Related crosswordese: AGA
Crossword puzzle frequency: 3 times a year
Frequency in English language: 26772 / 86800


Agha (or Aga) from Turkish Agha ‘leader’, ‘ruler’. Title for a civil or military officer, or often part of such title. As a title it was placed after the name of the certain military functionaries at the same time some Court functionaries were entitled to the agha title.



Crimean Agha Dedesh, portraited in 1664 for king John II Casimir by Daniel Schultz.


In the Ottoman Empire, commanders of the different branches of military services were called aghas i.e. azap agha, besli agha, janissary agha: the commanders of azaps, beslis, and janissaries.


This designation was given to commanders of smaller military units too, for instance the bulyuk agha, odzsak agha: the commander of a bulyuk and odzsak both meaning troops.



This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Agha”