n. 1. A member of a Turkic-speaking people of central Eurasia that settled in areas north and west of the Black Sea between the seventh and tenth centuries BC, founding khanates that eventually became Tatarstan and the country of Bulgaria. 2. See Bulgarian. [Medieval Latin Bulgarus, from Late Greek Boulgaros, perhaps of Turkic origin and akin to Old Turkic bulǧaq, mixed, from bulǧamaq, to mix.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.