Word.ws English Dictionary

dragoman

dragoman noun: an interpreter, especially for the Arabic and Turkish languages.

dragoman: an interpreter, especially for the Arabic and Turkish languages
Image: anonymous Greek artist, ca. 1809, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

dragoman (plural dragomans or dragomen)

  1. (historical) An interpreter, especially for the Arabic and Turkish languages.
    • Engaging William Prime's (q.v.) dragoman, he visits the bazaars, mosques, and Pyramids before sailing in the dahabeeya Rip Van Winkle up the Nile.1992, Martin R. Kalfatovic, Nile Notes of a Howadji, page 243
    • Dragomans altered the pasha's language to put it in a form best suited to performing the act that the principal intended. […] Far from being ‘free’, the dragomans' reformulation of the words of the source expressed subservience to their principal's intention.2011, David Bellos, chapter 11, in Is that a Fish in Your Ear?

dragoman meaning in Arabic and Persian

dragoman in Arabic

interpreter, especially for the Arabic and Turkish languages — see also interpreter
تُرْجُمَان turjumān

dragoman in Persian

interpreter, especially for the Arabic and Turkish languages — see also interpreter
ترگمان targomân

Forms of dragoman

pluraldragomans
pluraldragomen
alternative formdrogman
alternative formdruggerman

Origin of dragoman

From Middle English dragman, from Old French drugeman, from Medieval Latin dragumannus, from Byzantine Greek δραγομάνος (dragomános), from Arabic تُرْجُمَان (turjumān), from Classical Syriac ܬܰܪܓܡܳܢܳܐ (targmānā), from Akkadian 𒅴𒁄 (targumannum, “interpreter”). With the plural form -men, through reinterpretation as suffixed with -man. Doublet of truchman.

Words formed from dragoman

Questions about dragoman

What does dragoman mean?
Dragoman means an interpreter, especially for the Arabic and Turkish languages.
What is dragoman in Arabic?
Dragoman in Arabic is تُرْجُمَان (turjumān). See Dragoman meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is dragoman?
Dragoman is a noun.
What is the plural of dragoman?
The plural of dragoman is dragomans.

Words near dragoman in the dictionary

  1. DRAGNs
  2. Drago
  3. Dragobitai
  4. Dragodana
  5. Dragojle
  6. dragoman
  7. dragomanic
  8. dragomanish
  9. dragomans
  10. dragomen
  11. Dragomir

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dragoman (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “dragoman.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dragoman. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.