chiliarch

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek χιλίαρχος (khilíarkhos), from χίλιοι (khílioi, “thousand”) +‎ ἄρχω (árkhō, “to rule”), itself a calque of Old Iranian *hazāra-pati-.

Noun

chiliarch (plural chiliarchs)

1. (historical) A commander of a thousand troops in Hellenistic Greece.
   • 1886, Anna Swanwick (translator), The Dramas of Aeschylus, 4th edition, The Persians, page 220, lines 306–307

     And Dadaces, the chiliarch, spear-struck,
     Forth from his galley leapt with nimble bound.

   • 1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXIV, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 179:

     When I had seen it, I halted and turned to look up at the peak on whose slope we walked. I could see the face now and its mitre of ice, and below it the left shoulder, where a thousand cavalrymen might have been exercised by their chiliarch.

Translations

a commander of a thousand troops in Hellenistic Greece

• Aramaic:

  Classical Syriac: ܗܙܪܦܬ (hzārpat)

• Armenian: հազարապետ (hy) (hazarapet)
• Bulgarian: хилядник (hiljadnik)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: ^{(please verify)} 千總／千总 (zh) (qiānzǒng)

• French: chiliarque (fr) m
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: χιλίαρχος m (khilíarkhos)

• Italian: chiliarca m
• Middle Persian: 𐭧𐭦𐭠𐭫𐭥𐭯𐭲 (ḥzʾlʿpt)
• Old English: þūsendealdormann m
• Parthian: 𐭇𐭆𐭓𐭅𐭐𐭕 (hazārpet)
• Persian: هزاربد (hezârbod)