Maiwand

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A village in southern Afghanistan, near Kandahar, that became known for a British defeat in an 1880 battle
2. A small settlement in the Kandahar region of Afghanistan, remembered chiefly as the site of an 1880 clash in the Second Anglo-Afghan War
3. A place in southern Afghanistan where a notable 1880 battle took place during the Second Anglo-Afghan War

Etymology: Maiwand is a district in southern Afghanistan, in Kandahar Province, and the name is now best known for a battle fought there during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. In that battle, a British force under General George Burrows was defeated by Afghan troops led by Ayub Khan. The British lost well over a thousand men, and the defeat led to the siege of Kandahar and the relief march that followed. The battle's reach extended beyond military history. Arthur Conan Doyle's character John Watson, in "A Study in Scarlet," is wounded at the battle, which is how the fictional doctor comes to be invalided home to London. Reading's Forbury Gardens also holds the Maiwand Lion, a memorial to the Royal Berkshire Regiment, which lost many men there.