Pashto

noun

Pash·​to ˈpəsh-(ˌ)tō 

variants or less commonly Pushtu

ˈpəsh-(ˌ)tü 

: the Iranian language of the Pashtuns

Examples of Pashto in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In 1988, Abdul Ahad Momand became the first, and only, Afghan cosmonaut in space and made Pashto the fourth language ever spoken beyond Earth. — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 5 Aug. 2026

Turkish administrators announced translation support for earthquake victims in several languages, including Russian, German, and Pashto—but not Kurdish, the language of some fifteen million Turkish citizens. — Nikhil Krishnan, New Yorker, 20 July 2026

And people reporting such incidents, along with video and photos, can do so in one of 42 languages, including Swahili, Amharic, Pashto, Urdu, Tamil, Hmong, Nepali, Kinyarwanda, Telugu, Somali, Tigrinya, and many others. — Peter Lucas, Boston Herald, 19 Mar. 2026

The decree was issued last month but has only recently come to international attention after it was leaked to the Afghan rights group Rawadari, which published it in the original Pashto. — Mick Krever, CNN Money, 1 Mar. 2026

Word History

Etymology

Pashto pašto

First Known Use

1834, in the meaning defined above