bashaw
(bəˈʃɔː)
Forms: 6 bassawe, -shawe, -cha, (bassat, basso), 6–7 bassi, 6–8 bassa, basha, 7 bashawe, bassaw, -shaw, -char, bacha, 9 bashe, 7– bashaw.
[a. Turkish bāshā, variant of pāshā, prob. f. bāsh head, the Old Turkish not distinguishing p and b (Prof. Rieu): see pasha. The earliest English form came indirectly through med.L. and It. bassa (later It. bascià); other spellings represent 16–17th c. F. bachat, mod.F. bacha, pacha.]
1. a. The earlier form of the Turkish title pasha.
| 1534 More Comf. agst. Trib. iii. Wks. 1218/2 His Bassawes..surmount verye farre aboue any christen estate. 1548 Hall Chron. (1809) 771 The Turke loste foure score 1000 men as one of his Bassates did afterwarde confesse. 1601 R. Johnson Kingd. & Commw. 49 The Bassas..as it were Harpies, sucke the verye bloud of the people. 1602 Warner Alb. Eng. x. lvii. 252 His Bands of Janizaries..He out of these his Captaines, and his Bassies doth elect. 1678 Butler Hud. iii. iii. 306 Or else their Sultan-Populaces Still strangle all their routed Bassa's. 1693 Mem. Teckely iv. 15 He created Vizier Ismal Bacha. 1695 Motteux St. Olon's Morocco 31 A Captain, to whom they give the Title of Baschar. 1743 Fielding J. Wild iii. vii. (1762) 322 He addressed me with all the insolence of a basha to a Circassian slave. 1860 Motley Netherl. (1868) I. iii. 79, I will offer service to one of the Turk's bashaws. |
b. bashaw of two or three tails: one of lower or higher rank, as indicated by the number of horse-tails borne on his standard.
| 1753 Hanway Trav. (1762) II. xiii. ii. 295 He was appointed basha of three tails. 1798 Wolcott (P. Pindar) Tales of Hoy Wks. 1812 IV. 422 He would fly to Constantinople, hang up a bashaw of three tails. |
2. fig. A grandee; a haughty, imperious man.
| 1593 Nashe Christ's T. (1613) 85 The diuels chiefe Basso, Ambition. a 1670 Hacket Abp. Williams I. 82 In every society of men there will be some Bashawes, who presume that there are many rules of law from which they should be exempted. 1794 Godwin Cal. Williams 16 The young men..looked up to this insolent bashaw with timid respect. 1872 Geo. Eliot Middlem. liii. (1873) 185 You've taken to being a nob, buying land, being a country bashaw! |
3. Local name for a very large catfish of the species Pylodictis olivaris; the mud cat. U.S.
| 1888 G. B. Goode Amer. Fishes 378 Leptops olivaris, the ‘Mud Cat’, ‘Yellow Cat’, ‘Goujon’, or ‘Bashaw’ is found in all the large rivers of the West and South. 1923 Public Opinion 12 Oct. 357/3 A good-sized fish, itself Carnivorous, called a basha. |