Chorasmian

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Definitions

1. Relating to Chorasmia, an ancient region south of the Aral Sea in Central Asia ; a native or inhabitant of that ancient land
2. Describing things connected with the ancient Central Asian region of Chorasmia ; a member of the people who lived in that old kingdom
3. Of or belonging to the historical land of Chorasmia along the Amu Darya ; someone born in or descended from the people of that region

Etymology: Chorasmian names a people and their land: the Chorasmians lived in the Khorezm region south of the Aral Sea, in what is now Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The name reached Greek as "Khorasmía," and Latin borrowed it as "Chorasmia." The Old Persian form, recorded in royal inscriptions, was "Uvarazmiya," a name that the Greeks rendered with a initial "Kh" sound that Persian did not have in this word. English built the adjective in a simple way: the Latin place name "Chorasmia" took the suffix "-an," which came through Old French from Latin "-anus," meaning "belonging to" or "of." Chorasmian therefore means "of Chorasmia," and the same pattern gives English words like Persian, Parisian and Ethiopian, where the suffix is attached to a place name.