Iran

proper noun

1. 1

   A country in West Asia. Official name: Islamic Republic of Iran. Capital: Tehran.

   The Persians, in naming their country, make use of one word, which they indifferently pronounce Iroun, and Iran.

   Light was happiness; and the people of Iran, the land of light, were the favourites of heaven; while those of Turan, the gloomy region beyond the mountains to the north, were its enemies.

   "Iran is a vast and ancient country in a strategic location in the Middle East. It borders Russia, Iraq, Turkey, Pakistan, the Gulf of Oman, and the Persian Gulf."

   The US President himself accused Iran of being behind the provocation, threatening airstrikes on Iran last week – but calling them off just minutes before they were to begin.

2. 2

   The regions inhabited by the Iranian peoples.

   "Kavi means a king, but it is particularly used of the kings belonging to the second and most celebrated of the two mythical dynasties of Iran." "One certain fact is the occurrence of geographical names [Bactria, Sogdiana, etc] in Vendidad I, which are obviously intended to describe the earliest homes of the Iranian races whose lore was the Avesta."

   "Zoroaster of Iran. — Zoroaster, it is believed, sprang up in the seventh century before the Christian era, somewhere in the land between the Indus and the Tigris."

   "Iran. in early times, the name applied to the great Asiatic plateau which comprised the entire region from the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and Russian Turkestan on the north to the Tigris, the Persian Gulf, and the Arabian Sea on the west and south, and extending to the Indus on the east, likewise comprising the modern Afghanistan and the territory to the north of it as far as the Jaxartes River."

   "[The] Cambridge History of Iran [is] a survey of the history and historical geography of the land which is present-day Iran, as well as other territories inhabited by peoples of Iranian descent."