Kublai

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Kublai was the thirteenth-century Mongol ruler who became emperor of China and founded the Yuan dynasty after his grandfather Genghis Khan
2. A Mongol leader of the 1200s, grandson of Genghis Khan, who established the Yuan dynasty and ruled over China as its first emperor
3. The name of the Mongol emperor who conquered the Southern Song and established the Yuan dynasty, famed as a patron of arts and trade

Etymology: Kublai is the name of Kublai Khan, the thirteenth-century Mongol ruler who founded the Yuan dynasty in China, and it is a name rather than a common word. Its root is generally given as Mongolian "Khubilai," a name whose meaning is usually linked to "kubilai" or "kubilaqan," an element in Mongolian and Turkic naming that is often glossed as "great" or "wise," though the exact sense is uncertain. Scholars do not agree on a single etymology, so the meaning should be treated as a plausible reading rather than settled fact. In English, the name reached readers through Marco Polo's travel account, which Rustichello of Pisa helped record in the late thirteenth century and which circulated in Europe in the following decades. Polo's descriptions of the Great Khan's court gave European readers their first detailed picture of Kublai, and the spelling "Kublai" became the standard English form through later translations of that book.