Pakistan
UK /ˌpɑːkɪˈstɑːn/ · US /ˌpɑkɪˈstɑn/ proper noun
- proper noun A country in South Asia. Official name: Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Capital: Islamabad.
Synonyms
Etymology
English Pakistan Borrowed from Urdu پاکستان (pākistān). 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 epenthetic.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “Pakistan”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details