Forms: α. (7 firma, 8 firhman), 8–9 fermaun, firmaun, 7– firman. β. 7 phirman, 7–9 phirmaund. [a. Pers. fermān, OPers. *framāna (so in Pehlvi) = Skr. pramāṇa command.] An edict or order issued by an Oriental sovereign, esp. the Sultan of Turkey; a grant, licence, passport, permit.
1616. Sir T. Roe, in Purchas, Pilgrims (1624), I. IV. xvi. 541. Then I moued him for his fauour for an English Factory to be resident in the Towne, which hee willingly granted, and gaue present order to the Buxy to draw a Firma both for their comming vp, and for their residence.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 50. But upon sight of his Phirman (or Letter of command) hee agreed willingly.
1704. Collect. Voy. (Church.), III. 571/2. Your Majesty’s Firman, or Letters Patent.
1710. Pitt, Let., in Edin. Rev. (1893), 151. I had … a phirmaund under his great seal.
1816. Gentl. Mag., LXXXVI. I. 325/1. A translation of the fermaun itself has since been forwarded by Dr. Hunt.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea (1877), I. xvii. 369. Having caused the Porte to issue firmans perpetuating all the accustomed privileges of the Greek Church, he proposed that copies of these firmans should be sent to the Court of St. Petersburg.
transf. 1835. Hood, Poetry, Prose, & Worse, iv.
| He bows to the metrical firman, | |
| As dulcet as song of the South, | |
| And his head, like self-satisfied German, | |
| Rolls off with its pipe in its mouth. |
1840. Barham, Ingol. Leg., St. Odille, iii.
| At length one of her suitors, a certain Count Herman, | |
| A highly-respectable man as a German, | |
| Who smoked like a chimney, and drank like a merman; | |
| Paid his court to her father, conceiving his firman | |
| Would soon make her bend, | |
| And induce her to lend | |
| An ear to a love-tale in lieu of a sermon. |
