pakistan
n. countablen. a large country in South Asia with a long history and many different cultures. It shares borders with India, Afghanistan, Iran, and China.
n. a sovereign state in South Asia, bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan and Iran to the west, and China to the north. It is the world's fifth-most populous country and has a coastline along the Arabian Sea.
Pakistan is famous for its beautiful mountains and delicious food.
Many international students travel to Pakistan to study its ancient archaeological sites and diverse geography.
The geopolitical significance of Pakistan is defined by its strategic location at the crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, influencing regional trade and security policies.
Borrowed from Urdu پاکستان (pākistān, “Land of the Holy”), from پاک (pāk, “pure, holy, immaculate, chaste, undefiled”) and Classical Persian ـستان (-stān,-istān, “-stan”). The word was coined by Pakistani politician Chuhdary Rahmat Ali in 1933, who published it in the pamphlet Now or Never as an acronym of the names of the "Muslim homelands" of western India—Punjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Balochistan. Absent from said acronym (which may possibly be a backronym) is the letter ⟨i⟩, which is sometimes erroneously said to stand for the Indus, but it is in fact epenthetic.
Always capitalized as a proper noun; typically used without an article unless referring to the 'Islamic Republic of Pakistan'.