mogul

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A very rich or powerful person, especially in business or media.

   She started as a junior reporter and ended up a media mogul.

2. 2
   noun

   A small hard bump on a ski slope.

   He skied carefully down the slope, weaving between the moguls.

Simplified etymology

Mogul meaning a powerful person developed from Mogul, the name for a member of the Muslim dynasty that ruled much of India from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The historical name, now more commonly spelled Mughal, comes from Persian mugul, “Mongol.” The skiing term mogul, meaning a bump or hillock, is unrelated and comes from Austrian German Mugel, “hillock.”

Figurative use of Moghul, which originally meant Mongol, or person of Mongolian descent. In this context, it refers to the Mughal Empire (Mughal being Persian or Arabic for "Mongol") of the Indian subcontinent that existed between 1526 and 1857: the early Mughal emperors claimed a heritage dating back to the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan. The modern meaning of the word is supposedly derived from the storied riches of the Mughal emperors, which, for example, produced the Taj Mahal.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary