Word.ws English Dictionary

parasang

UK/ˈpaɹəsaŋ/US/ˈpɛɹəsæŋ/

parasang noun: a historical Iranian unit of itinerant distance used throughout the Western Mediterranean and the Middle East in antiquity, originally the distance travelled in one hour, and generally assumed to be equivalent to about six kilometres.

Noun

parasang (plural parasangs or parasang)

  1. A historical Iranian unit of itinerant distance used throughout the Western Mediterranean and the Middle East in antiquity, originally the distance travelled in one hour, and generally assumed to be equivalent to about six kilometres.
    • To see so much difference betwixt words and deeds, so many parasangs betwixt tongue and heart […].
    • We were told that we still had to drive six or sixty parasang.2013, Lucy Renner Jones, translating Annemarie Schwarzenbach, Death in Persia, Seagull Books 2013, p. 44

Forms of parasang

pluralparasangs
pluralparasang

Origin of parasang

From Latin parasanga, from Ancient Greek παρασάγγης (parasángēs), from unattested Old Persian *frasanhvah (indigenously attested only in Middle Iranian onwards); compare Middle Persian [script needed] (frasang /⁠plsng⁠/, “frasang (4 Roman miles)”) (whence Persian فرسنگ (farsang)). Doublet of farsang and farsakh.

Questions about parasang

What does parasang mean?
Parasang means a historical Iranian unit of itinerant distance used throughout the Western Mediterranean and the Middle East in antiquity, originally the distance travelled in one hour, and generally assumed to be equivalent to about six kilometres.
What part of speech is parasang?
Parasang is a noun.
How do you pronounce parasang?
Parasang is pronounced /ˈpaɹəsaŋ/ (UK).
What is the plural of parasang?
The plural of parasang is parasangs.

Words near parasang in the dictionary

  1. parasailing
  2. parasailor
  3. parasailors
  4. parasails
  5. Parasan
  6. parasang
  7. parasangs
  8. Parasapas
  9. parasaurolophi
  10. parasaurolophin
  11. parasaurolophins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: parasang (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.

Last updated:

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