sanjak

English

Alternative forms

• zanzack [17th c.], sanjac, sancak

Etymology

From Ottoman Turkish سنجاق (sancâk, “subdivision of a vilayet”, literally “flag, banner”), from Proto-Turkic *sančgak (“lance, streamer attached to a spear”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈsandʒak/

Noun

sanjak (plural sanjaks)

1. (politics) A district, a prefecture, particularly (historical) a second-level administrative division of the Ottoman Empire. [from 16th c.]
   • 1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow:

     This lymphatic monster had once blocked the distinguished pharynx of Lord Blatherard Osmo, who at the time occupied the Novy Pazar desk at the Foreign Office, an obscure penance for the previous century of British policy on the Eastern Question, for on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe.

2. (historical, inexact, obsolete) Synonym of sanjakbey: the officer supervising a sanjak. [16th–19th c.]
   • 1630, John Smith, True Travels, Kupperman, published 1988, page 45:

     ... the Duke ... enforced all the whole Armie to retire to the Campe, with the losse of five or six thousand, with the Bashaw of Buda, and foure or five Zanzacks, with divers other great Commanders, two hundred Prisoners, and nine peeces of Ordnance.

Synonyms

• district, prefecture, county, sanjakship, sanjakate, mutasarrifate, mutasarriflik

Coordinate terms

• vilayet, kaza, nahiyah
• sanjakbey, mutasarrif, kaymakam

Derived terms

• sanjakry, sanjakship, sanjakate

Related terms

• sanjakbey

Translations

an administrative region under the Ottoman Empire

• Albanian: sanxhak (sq)
• Arabic: سَنْجَق (sanjaq)
• Armenian: սանջակ (hy) (sanǰak)
• French: sandjak (fr) m
• Hungarian: szandzsák (hu)
• Italian: sangiacco m
• Kazakh: санжақ (sanjaq)
• Ottoman Turkish: سنجاق (sancak), لوا (liva)
• Russian: санджак (ru) m (sandžak)
• Turkish: sancak (tr)
• Uyghur: سانجاق (sanjaq)

References

• “sanjak, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 2022.

Anagrams

• Janaks

Acehnese

Etymology

Derived from Arabic سـجـع (sajʕ, “rhymed prose”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /saɲɟaʔ/

Noun

sanjak

1. a kind of verse used in national Acehnese poetry

References

• Thurgood, Graham (1999) From Ancient Cham to Modern Dialects: Two Thousand Years of Language Contact and Change, Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, pages 54-56.