parasang

par·a·sang

(păr′ə-săng′)

An ancient Persian unit of distance, usually estimated at 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers).

[Latin parasanga, from Greek parasangēs, of Iranian origin.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

parasang

(ˈpærəˌsæŋ)

(Units) a Persian unit of distance equal to about 5.5 km or 3.4 miles

[C16: via Latin and Greek from a Persian word related to modern Persian farsang]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

References in periodicals archive ?

setting up a system for translating between fathom, stade, parasang, and

The plot unravels: Darius's numbered days in Scythia (Herodotus 4.98)

They knew that Abraham and his people were in the village of Jirun(101) and between him and them there was only [a distance] of one parasang, that the calamity did not befall them, and that the entire world, except the people of Lot, were safe from it.

A SHII-JEWISH "DEBATE" (MUNAZARA) IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

813-833) astronomers to be twenty-two parasangs and two-ninths of a parasang (or "they found it to be 22 2/9 parasangs" in Ragep's translation, p.

Writing the history of Arabic astronomy: problems and differing perspectives

(178) A Syriac passage written by Ishoyahb III (647 or 650-657/8) describes the sphere of influence of the church as extending from the "marit[i]me borders of the Persian kingdom to the country called QLH, which is the distance of one thousand and two hundred parasangs." (179) This source dates from a time when the Islamic conquest of the Near East was still ongoing and certainly reflects the Sasanian-period expansion of the Christians.

The new materia medica of the Islamicate tradition: the pre-Islamic context

His femur is reported as being over three parasangs long (TB Niddah 24b).

The bed of Og

Extinct 1930 Xenophon, 401 BC Anabasis--The March of Cyrus Nineveh, Mesopotamia Cyrus now advanced through Arabia, Having the Euphrates on the right, Five days' march through the desert, A distance of thirty-five parasangs. In this region the ground Was entirely a plain, level as the sea.