Definition of "sultan" [sul•tan]

• A ruler of a Muslim country, especially of the former Ottoman Empire. (noun)
• A powerful person: a sultan of vice and corruption. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Reagan had pretty seriously deteriorated by this point, and the grand vizier has a lot of power when the sultan is senile."
• "Prince Amir, with a hundred other sons of the sultan, is kept prisoner in a palace where intrigue, murder, and poison are the least of their troubles -- a cursed spirit hunts the princes down, killing one after another."
• "58 The humble title of emir was no longer suitable to the Ottoman greatness; and Bajazet condescended to accept a patent of sultan from the caliphs who served in Egypt under the yoke of the Mamalukes: 59 a last and frivolous homage that was yielded by force to opinion; by the Turkish conquerors to the house of Abbas and the successors of the Arabian prophet."