Ecbatana

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An ancient city in western Iran that served as the capital of the Median empire and later as a Persian royal residence
2. The historic Median capital in what is now Iran, famed in antiquity for its grand palaces and summer retreat of Persian kings
3. A storied city of the ancient Near East in present-day Iran, once the principal seat of the Medes before the Persian era

Etymology: Ecbatana was the capital of the Median kingdom, and its name has outlasted the city's own importance by well over two millennia. The city's Old Persian name, Hangmatāna, is generally understood to mean "gathering place," a fitting title for a royal seat where people and power came together. The Greeks rendered it as Ekbatana, and that Greek form passed into Latin and then into English as a name for the ancient city. The city itself is the same place as modern Hamadan in western Iran. The two names are doublets: one came into English through the classical Latin and Greek tradition, while the other descends directly from the local name that survived in Persian speech. So the ancient capital and the present-day city share a single identity, but reached English along separate routes.