Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun archaic, politics
Ottoman Empire .
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
A calque of a phrase coined by Czar Nicholas I, Romanov, of the Empire of Russia: больной человек Европы. This name for the Turkish Ottoman Empire refers to the sickly state of the Ottoman state in the 19th century.
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