Hist. [ad. late L. chagānus, cagānus, in Byz. Gr. χαγᾶνος, ad. Old Turkish khāgān king, sovereign; see CHAM and KHAN.] An ancient form of the word KHAN; applied (after the mediæval Latin and Greek chroniclers) to the sovereign of the Avars in the 6th and 7th centuries.
1776–81. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xlii. (1875), 719. The Avars … the chagan, the peculiar title of their king. Ibid., xlvi. (1875), 800. When the Roman envoys approached the presence of the chagan.
1842. Penny Cycl., XXIV. 73/2. The Khazars … their kings were called Chagan or more correctly Khaghan, which was the name of the old Mongol kings a thousand years before the appearance of the Khazars. Ibid., 74/2. The Russians in 1016 … made their khaghan Georges Tzula a prisoner.
